Systems to Make More and Work Less with Josh Fonger

This is Mike Michalowicz, the author of profit first. And you know the most common question I get? It's am I getting profit first? Right. Well, guess what? I'm doing a live workshop here at my offices in New Jersey. It's a two day workshop, and I want to invite you. Go to profitfirstlive.com, that's profitfirstlive.com and come to my office, perhaps even with your bookkeeper, accountant, and master profit first. We're going to make your business permanently profitable. All right, you guys know the routine. I got to. I got to read a. I love that you wrote adjective and noun on here. That makes it so much more helpful. J Trombone, are you ready?

Yes.

All right, my friends, strap on your sweaty blazer. That's freaking disgusting. Because you're about to hear how to run your business on automatic. You using the work the system method. That and so much more on today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Yes. I'm Jack Today. Oh, you know what, Kels?

Yeah.

I heard there's a person that didn't like this intro music. Yeah, they're idiots. No, this music's awesome. I mean, they're not idiots, but I mean, they're a little bit stupid.

Just. They like the other one. It's just fine. It's good.

That's not nice, though. Oh, they like the other one more than this one? Oh, I just thought. They hate this music. I love this music.

Hate this music.

Okay, then they are.

It is.

My name is Mike Michalis. I am the author on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. You know what that is, Kels? It's that perception. The world thinks you're, like, wildly successful financially. You get all the time in the world you want. You live the life that you've dreamed, but the opposite is the reality. You're not making money. You don't have any time. You don't have a life. Well, we close that gap, we make the entrepreneurial dream a reality. And you heard me call out her name. I am joined the studio with Kelsey Ayers.

Hello, friend. You can find us on itunes. Stitcher, tunein radio, Spotify, iheartradio.com, entrepreneurshipelevatedpodcast.com or whatever podcast you're listening to, you know.

Also in studios J Ankle bone.

Hey. There you go.

That's a little bit better, right?

Yeah, that's a little bit better.

Possibilities are endless there. It could be any bone.

Yeah.

Yeah. And if you need insurance, J. Bone will sell it to you.

Yeah, thanks.

Nice Plug. Yeah. I'm sure that everybody wants to buy insurance from a guy who's Jay Schlong. Jay Schloss on my business card. J Boner, ready to sell some insurance.

Struggle to get insurance. J. Boner will give it to you.

I was going to do well on insurance until this.

Now you're out of the industry.

Now it's done.

You went through, like, six months of training. You passed all the certifications, and in one episode, he's ruined. Cass, what you been up to?

I've really honestly just been getting ready for my trip. I'm like, T minus two weeks now.

Yeah. You're noticeably tanner.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, you're dressing a little more like travel Y or something.

Yes. Yeah. I'm trying to work out outfits because I have.

I think they look really nice.

I'm trying to be very minimalistic. I have just one backpack that I'm bringing, so figuring out what I can do, you know?

This shirt you're wearing now, well, you have a scarf over. Cause you're freezing, which makes no sense. It's like 85 degrees outside.

The air conditioning was at 58 before when I came in.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Well, I think the outfits you're wearing, I think they're very. I don't know, they just. They don't feel business, but they don't. What would you call them?

We'll call it, like, bohemian.

Bohemian. A little bit bohemian chic. Oh, I like that. I like that.

What have you been up to?

So I did my first therapy session.

Yeah? How'd it go?

It was good. It was good. It's a.

It's.

It's funny. Jay Sloan and I were talking about it. It's just like a big brain dump. It's like. Yeah, you can. As Jay Schlone said, you can just bitch and moan to somebody.

Yeah.

And it was, you know, half. It was the intake. But here's the funny thing. I don't know if I told you this. I told my wife. Yeah. Did I tell you about the end?

Yeah.

So the last, like, five minutes, I start having this realization. So my parents are very elderly, and I'm like.

Yeah.

My dad is. He's 90, almost 92. He. He's an indigent now. He can. Is that the right word or you can't. Well, you can't leave the house. Not an indigent. It's. What's the word?

I'm thinking of, like a shut in.

Invalid.

Invalid.

Yeah. He's an invalid. He's Shut in. Shut in. Yeah. And so it's sad. And I'm like. All of a sudden, it's epiphany. Like, I'm really. I'm watching my parents die in front of me, and it's kind of a wilting, and I'm like, this is really causing. And as I'm saying that, he looks at his watch and says, all right, that's time.

In the middle of that thought, in.

The middle of, like, the first realization, because I have, like, this little bit of a sadness building in me. I'm like, oh, I wonder if it's. We're good. We're good. We'll see you next week. $50 copay.

Yeah. Just doing that sadness for a bit.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's part of therapy.

You know what I thought about this week? That's really morbid. So I was thinking about mortality. I don't know why. Sometimes I get in these, like, loose.

Yeah, sounds human.

So the thought that went in my head and it really wigged me out was, I've already seen people for the last time. Like, people in my life. I've already seen them for the last time, and I don't know it.

Yeah, that is morbid.

Isn't that weird?

Anybody?

Yeah, like a childhood friend.

Yeah. I mean, it's super morbid. Could be today, right?

This could be the last time.

Yeah.

Thanks. My cat, you know, I mean, I can't believe.

I can't believe that you said that. So your cat is. Is. Was very ill. Almost died.

Yeah.

Right.

Kelsey's like, oh, no. I appreciated the humor, though. Like, what did she say? She said, yeah, he could have been dead, and then just stared at me.

Morbid, Kelsey, really?

I actually wish he didn't die.

If he died, it would have been different. Okay.

I wish that was on video because that was an amazing face that you made, though.

You know, you can find some. Do you say itunes And Stitcher. You already did that.

Yep.

We do have a game we're going to play a little later on. I wanted to name that product because I've been working on some great. Okay. And not name that product, but, you know, the fake product.

Yeah, that's my favorite.

Okay. Is that your favorite? Yeah, that's my favorite too. Do you like that one?

I like them.

Okay. And I do want. Do we mean listener shout outs or anything like that?

I think. Yeah, we do.

Okay. Can you me. Would you read it?

Maybe I would.

Okay.

This One comes from a.m. lansing. They write. Until I heard your podcast and read your book. I had no idea how to take the first step towards financial freedom. Your teachings are a guiding force in my financial well being. Thanks for your honesty and sharing your personal struggles. Your history resonates deeply with me. I've had financial wins in the past, but had no idea how to have them. Help me move forward.

AM Lansing Good point. Thank you so much. I love hearing that. You know, we have two types of listeners. AM Lansing we have people that I only listen to the stuff, this dialogue in the beginning and the games at the end. We do.

Then we have people who only listen.

To the only the interview. Isn't that awesome? We have two types of communities. J. Colon.

People have told you that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my son's girlfriend said, oh, I listened to your show. I said, oh, was that fun? Did you laugh and stuff? She's like, what are you talking about? Is this an interview? I'm like, well, didn't you hear the banter and stuff in the beginning? She's like, no, I skipped that shit.

And my sister pretty much only listens to the beginning and the end.

Yeah, that's awesome.

That's great.

All right, I want to thank our corporate partner, Nextiva, and make the show a reality. They have a brand new technology about tornado warnings. We'll talk about that later. It's revolutionary.

Amazing.

All right, let's get to our guest. We're going to talk about Work the System with Josh Fonger. Josh is a consultant, coach and speaker. He's earned a reputation of being one of the world's top consultants and coaches who has a unique ability of developing and implementing systematic solutions to complex business problems. His consulting firm, which is called Work the System, which the name was coined after the famous book Work the System written by Sam Carpenter, who is Josh's partner, has attracted over 100,000 business owners from small start businesses to large half billion dollar enterprises. And we're going to learn on this episode how you, my dear listening friend, can work the system. Josh, welcome to our show.

Welcome Josh.

Excited to be here.

All right. I can feel your excitement, brother. So listen, Josh, I mean, so many entrepreneurs work their tails off. They work ungodly hours and many they do it for not so much money. Why do entrepreneurs think this is the method to growing a successful business?

Well, I think they get stuck. They get stuck in the wrong mindset. And I wouldn't have answered that way 10 years ago, but after working with literally hundreds of companies and telling them the right things to do, teaching them the right things to Do I realized it's not a knowledge gap. It's just a mindset blockage that they have, and it's the mindset that no one else can do it the way they can do it. And once they believe that, then they're unwilling to give anything up. And also the second part of that is they just. They don't see the separateness of what they do. They just see it as their work. And so once they accumulate a thousand different things that they do, they. They realize that no one else can do that, which is true. But there are people who can do portions of what they do, and they just never take the time to break it up into smaller, simpler chunks.

I call it the superhero syndrome, where the entrepreneur feels compelled to swoop in and save the day. It feeds their ego, but also, I think, from the employee standpoint, if I'm coming in saving the day, I'm giving them the very specific direction of what to do. The employee can do no wrong. So how do I assume we stay trapped in this, and how do we get out of this?

Well, I think it's a fundamental mindset shift and also just casting a different vision for your life, a life where you do have the ability to take a vacation, your nights are off, your mornings are off, and actually say, you know what, based on a new reality I want to have. What are the steps to get there? And most people, they just get stuck and say, this is my reality. And they. They work till their limit, and they max out their. Their money and their time and their stress. And then, as you know, most companies go out of business, and so they max that out for as long as they can, and then they go under. And that's the normal trajectory of a company. Unless they get this, you know, this shift and they're willing to separate and delegate and automate. They will. I mean, just. It's inevitable. They will burn out. They will. And they'll have a string of some bad luck. You know, lose a big client, you know, their software will go down, their hardware will go down, they'll get sick, and then a few weeks later, they'll be out of business.

So what do you think about all these. I don't know what the word is, but experts, gurus that are out there promoting the concept of hustle and grind. You got to hustle hard, man. You got to push yourself. What do you think about that kind of mentality that's coming around?

You know, I think it's great in the. Maybe the first few months of your business, right? Right, right. You know, so if you are, you know, if you are a startup entrepreneur, then you do have to figure out the right recipe, the equation of success. So what is the client wants? What are they willing to pay you for? How are you going to actually deliver that as you're growing your team? But once you have a sense of what they're willing to pay for, then that won't last. I mean, it's inevitable you're going to burn out. And I think it's bad advice. I think it's more important to figure out the recipe and then to immediately build a team. You can't. I mean, no company that's large does it alone. So I mean, it should be very obvious that you can't do it alone and that there's a limit and there's a huge, I mean, there's certainly a lot of research that has to do with if you can rest and rest your mind, going to think better, make better choices, make less mistakes. And mistakes are costly in business.

So let's talk about breaking out of this lifestyle, because I think for many people listening in right now, you start a business, you have to work your tail off to get off the ground. You have to hustle and grind that first few months. But those first few months turn into a few years, maybe a decade or two, maybe you get entrenched in a process. How do you start breaking free of that lifestyle?

What we do is we help people break free by changing their mindset, but then document their systems. And most people think, well, how do I do that? And it's a pretty simple process. You get a piece of paper and you write down every single thing you do. And if you have a team, they do the same thing. It's quite tedious. But if you write down, okay, I answer these emails, file these reports, reviewed this contract, made this call, I mean, you make the tedious list and then you start putting other people's names next to those tasks. And you say, you know what? No one can do my job. But there is one person who could probably get the mail for me, or there's somebody who could probably sweep the floors for me. And then you start to assemble those separate pieces, separate systems of your business. And then you start to free yourself up. I mean, bit by bit by bit. And it's not a silver bullet and it's not super sexy. We're going to become a millionaire in a week. But you can free yourself a few hours a week and then that you might, you can free up a few thousand dollars A month. And then, you know, that just snowballs.

That sounds like that is the way to achieve something. Jay Kablone, you started running again, you said, right? Yeah, yeah. And so Josh just give you some scenario. We went on a corporate retreat and one morning I wake up like, hey, let's go running. Whoever wants in. And Jacob Blone accidentally was walking through the kitchen to get coffee. So he's caught up in the moment there. I'm like, are you gonna come? He's like, I'm in. And we went running. I kind of pushed everyone. We went like a mile and a half. Not a runner. And you hurt yourself. Isn't the solution, not in life. Josh, to dive in and do full bore isn't the better approach to build momentum, to build that strength?

Definitely, yeah. And it's the long view and I think maybe more so today than any other time. People really want quick fixes. They want to feel good quickly, emotionally and they want whatever is going to be the fastest hack. And you know, they hear the term work the system and they think it's some kind of tricky, sneaky way. But really it's about working on your systems, working with your systems, working in your systems. Because if you do, you're going to achieve exponential growth if you stick with it. And so yeah, it's definitely the idea of working on the non urgent but important parts of your business, realizing that if you build those building blocks, the competition that is just hustling, they can't keep up with you because you, you have business fundamentals built in that hard work can't, can't beat, you know, work.

The System is a book written by Sam Carpenter. It's an amazing book. Everyone needs to get this book. You converted it or with his partnership made it to work the system. Enterprises tell us about the method of work the system, how exactly does it work?

Well, so entrepreneurs come to us and they're usually busy and they're usually out of time, money and they're typically stressed out and that's like an ideal client.

No money, tons of stress.

Yeah. And so our goal is to break them free from that. So there's a simple framework and not to go into details, but we change their mindset. That's the first thing we call it, outside and slightly elevated. So if you're currently working in the business, it's might seem very stressful, chaotic and you are kind of the victim of your circumstance. But if you get outside and above it and look down, you're going to see the separate systems of your business. And then be able to work on them. So that's the first step. The next step is the strategy. We call it the strategic objective. Because unless you have a vision, a direction, a place you want to go and a plan to get there, you just kind of stay in what I call a yo yo business. You're just kind of going in circles, up and down. You're not really going anywhere because you have no trajectory to actually try to hit. So that's the second main component. The third component is the principles. So everybody who works in your team, you want them to assimilate around a common set of beliefs, values, decision making guidelines. Because ultimately your most expensive, your most variable assets within your business are your people. And they might come and go and bring their own baggage. And what you want is everyone to kind of agree to a certain set of decision making guidelines and then you can empower them more, enable them more. And as an owner, you know that everybody in your team is going to think similarly, like, like you, the owner. And therefore that gives you a lot of peace of mind knowing that, that you know those most variable elements of your business, the people are going to be aligned. Then the last thing, which is, which takes some time is the procedures. So you know, what is the best way to answer the phone, what is the best way to send out a newsletter? What is, and so it's, it's actually some deep thinking about what is the best way to do each thing and then it's the documentation of it. And so what we end up with, and some companies actually call it this is, they call it the digital brain. So basically, instead of everyone going to the owner to find the answer for everything, everyone goes to this digital brain that is working 24 7, that's always accessible and that has the best ways to do everything in it. And over time, that brain gets bigger and deeper and, and has more knowledge in it. And therefore that's the nexus for how things happen instead of the owner's brain.

I like that perspective. I'm thinking though, the first employee I hire, it sounds like I can't have this digital brain in place right away. It sounds like it needs to grow.

Or build as well. Exactly. Yeah. And that's why people, I think it's what scares people from this is they think, well, I don't have the brain yet, so how could I hire anybody, right? And it's, it's, you know, it starts with idea of collaboratively building it, right? So if I bring on someone like I've got gal, a gal works Me, who does infusionsoft, I don't know much about the program, but she does. And so she helps document the systems that. Of what she does. And then I can have my assistant do some of those processes that are more routine because someone above her wrote them down. And so the team builds the brain, not the owner, because if the owner does it, then you have this belief that you know the best about everything. And that is very limiting in terms of how big the company can be. And so you really have to get them to buy into the strategy and. And the actual principles, and then they build it, you know, for Sam, you know, he. He wrote the book based on his business centertell, which is still in business in Oregon, and he only wrote the first few procedures. But, you know, 18 years later, the company is still writing procedures and systems and refining them. And because they bought into the strategy.

And the belief system, I think, like that person just referenced who does the infusionsoft. Isn't there a risk that she becomes masterful at infusionsoft and then one day comes to you and says, listen, I'm gonna go get another job. AKA you lose all this knowledge, it's gonna go out the door with me. Or B, I will leave if you don't pay me more. I mean, doesn't she kind of reverse golden handcuffs you if she retains that knowledge? Yes.

Yeah. I mean, this is definitely a real issue. So some folks are totally fine documenting it. So when we work with companies, we try to get everyone to do it simultaneously so no one feels like they're being picked on. But, yeah, someone's going to say, hey, you know what? If I give you all of my knowledge, then what's the use of me? And so we try to get owners to say, well, if they believe that, then you probably have the wrong person in the first place because they're not contributing. And they don't understand that where you are now is not where you want to be in five years. And so if you're going to be a lot bigger and be doing a lot more of your product or service, necessarily where people are now is going to be not where they are five years from now. And so they need to basically, you know, buy in and be a part of it, or they end up leaving the company. But it's a. It's a real. It's a real problem. And if you're not a strong leader and you don't have a strong vision, then that can definitely be a scary thing to address.

Kelsey, I'm thinking of Your situation. You're about to depart for two months from this company. God, I'm already terrified. I've been terrified the entire time. What's been the journey for you in bringing about a system to our business? And I'm curious what questions you have for Josh. You got two more weeks for us to leverage this.

I know. So, yeah, pretty much I've been doing exactly what he just explained. So I have a system for pretty much every aspect of my job. But actually removing myself has allowed me to troubleshoot the gaps in my systems. So the little quirks that come up that I just take as assumed knowledge, that is absolutely not assumed knowledge. I need to fill in those gaps now. So that's been an awesome part of this process, really working through the systems that you create. And that's a great test for anybody. You know, it's one thing to write the procedure is another thing to really test it over and over with different people.

So as you're preparing for this, what would you ask Josh? If there's anything outstanding that you. You could still. We can still gain, and we got to be an expert. The expert.

I think that the digital brain aspect, that's been really hard for me to, like, have concrete parameters, particularly around your schedule, because I feel like it's so nuanced. So I guess if there's any tips or tricks to really develop that holistically, that kind of garners all the information we need.

Definitely. Yeah. A great question. And you're doing the right thing by working in advance because you don't want to be. I don't know if you're going on vacation or what, but it's no fun to get emergency calls the whole time. So there are different types of procedures, and so the most common one is we call it the how to procedure, and it's basically the recipe of how to do a task. You know, how to set up this podcast, for instance. So it's linear. There's. There's steps. They're chronological. People can follow them, and then sometimes interwoven people will write in there, you know, what they were thinking or how they decided about a certain step. That's the most common. But beyond that, there's a different one called guideline. So a guideline procedure is basically a narrative that explains the best practices of how you handle a nuanced situation. So you might have communication guidelines or design guidelines or customer service guidelines. And those are going to be, you know, in paragraph form that are going to describe how does Kelsey think about Regania's Sponsor. How does she make decisions about, you know, what would she do if someone came in late? And so they're kind of situations that come up regularly that you have a decision making guideline already written. So we call them guideline procedures. And there's also, you know, checklists which most people are familiar with, and then process outlines. So if you have a whole assortment of things that you do that kind of loosely fit together and they fit together over the course of a few weeks or a month, then people who come into your role aren't going to understand how those pieces fit together unless you show them a process outline.

I really like that decision making guideline.

I wonder, Josh, the design guideline too, like, you know, how to design communication. I think of it in that sense. Obviously there's like branding design.

Yeah. Too.

But even the type of language we use, how to approach people in a consistency.

Yeah, yeah, I like that. Because, you know, if you go to like a McDonald's or something, like you don't go to each restaurant expecting something to be radically different. You expect back to the exact same standard every time. Right, right. So if we want our business to grow like that, we need to have a standard to meet people's expectations. I'm wondering though, Josh, like, I don't know many people that want to read a thick, you know, SOP document. I dare say we price it on the shelf and collect dust. How do I get people, once we develop these systems, how do I get the new people to actually consume what we've developed? And here to question. It's amazing question.

Right.

Because we, we struggle with that.

Yeah. They'll read it once and then not refer back to it.

We've had some people, not to mention names, that haven't made it here because they can't really grasp the system for some reason.

Help us. Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. This is very common. I've gone to companies where they have binders that have all their processes. It's just that they're 10 years old and so they're all obsolete. And I go there and I. And they have to pay a lot of money to redo the whole thing. So the main thing is to keep it, keep it actionable, simple, and keep them alive. And so for an employee, there might, let me put it this way, so there might be 400 procedures for a particular business, but somebody who's in sales might only really need to know 30 of them. But on a daily basis they might only use five of them. Right. So. So really you want them to be expert in those five and memorize those five. But the 30 they probably won't look at very often. But maybe once a, once a month, once every couple months they're going to reference those and the whole, the whole system they might look at every couple of years. And so as the leader, you have to dictate a schedule, a schedule for maintenance, a schedule to have them go back to that. Because the truth is, yeah, they won't, they won't go back to it. And what will happen is the best ideas, the innovations, the ideas will go back to their head and will never translate to the actual machine. So you know, the, the actual documentation. So as the owner, it's your responsibility to focus your efforts on keeping that machine up to date and optimized. Otherwise the natural tendency is for each employee to kind of house the best ideas, their tweaks, their innovations in their head. And so it really is, it's a leadership issue because it creates a little bit extra work. And employees are not, won't commonly do extra work. Right. Unless there's some kind of incentive or strategy around it. But also we make the employees actually write their own. So they do believe they're valuable because they actually wrote them and they actually solved the problem. And the other, the other thing that I thought was really interesting when working with Sam over the last decade is realizing that most people, their standard in the business is just to, just to do enough, just to survive. And so they, they can shoot from the hip, they can act extemporaneously, they can just be really on the spot and do good enough. But to go to that next level of quality and reduce the variability, you have to actually write things down. And once the team sees that that's your vision and they see that there's actually a way to get there. And the way to get there can only happen by staying consistent in the systems. That's when that happens. But unless they, I mean, if they don't see that vision and they just see everyone shooting from the hip, they're not going to bother doing it.

Right, right.

That's the.

Yeah, well, you got chase.

One thing that I, it's like a love hate relationship with is acronyms. Because if you can create one for a procedure, it like gets jammed in your head and you're like, I can't forget it. But then you can't forget it. And you know, so the military uses.

It all the time.

Yeah, yeah. Like my motorcycle course, they used like five over and over. And it's like now every time I'm Going through a turn.

It's like, so my brother in law is in the military. He's like, oh, yeah, we jumped on the spider and blah, blah. I'm like, oh, like, what's the spider? He's like, oh, it's the specialty procurement, you know, and they have all these acronyms, but it's very recognizable.

So for procedural things and operating things, I think it. It's cool if you can. If you can make it like, you know, alliteration.

There's your new mandate. Use alliteration and make lots of acronyms. Why are you writing this down? That's a joke.

Alliteration and acronym.

Welcome to our new program.

Add some anatomy in there.

You have these horrible Ackermans, like, welcome to our fear program. It's fulfillment, you know, etc. Josh, before we let you go, Work the System Enterprises, you have an extraordinary organization helping businesses become more efficient. You actually have coaches now that can get certified. Where can people hook up with you and learn more about Work the System?

Definitely. Yeah. So if you're an entrepreneur and you are stressed working too many hours without enough bottom line, then go to workassystem.com. that's where the book is.

It's free.

That's where our training resources are. And happy to help.

That's awesome, Josh. Thanks for sharing it. We'll have it in the show notes the Work the System link. Definitely. Check out the book. Clockwork is a compliment to Work the System. Work the System is the foundational book you got to read, so pick it on up.

Thanks, Josh.

Thank you.

I will. See you, Josh. Bye. Bye. All right, Kels, how come I always forget what I punched? Premature. As a premature punch. Now we do one more punch because I want to recap what we learned. I got a game for us today. I got a tip I want to share or at least answer listener mail. But first.

But first.

There we go. But first. You know the worst bit we've ever did was like the Delaney bit. We're like, oh, what does your sister like? We said just Jordan.

It wasn't even Delaney.

That's how bad it was. It was just Jordan. That's right. It was just Jordan. It was so bad.

Yeah. And you keep bringing it up.

Well, because we got a complaint immediately and it was from me.

Yeah, I was gonna say it was your bit and you hated it right away.

Nexteve is a voiceover IP phone system. Do you know something special about them? Yeah, there's these tornadoes that tour, tour, tour, tour through Oklahoma, Pennsylvania was at risk. Their system Has a tornado warning system. Right. And you, you got awoken to this. What happened, Jaybone?

Yeah, it was in the middle of the night. Just a loud sounds like.

Was your cat dying, as Kelsey would say?

Yeah, my cat was trying to go to the bathroom.

He goes, was he dead?

Is that a tornado warning or is that a cat?

Yeah. So that's what the nextiva Systems does because a lot of people have cats, to be honest.

And a lot of people have tornadoes.

A lot of tornadoes. Right. So they wanted to address two things at once. And I think what they did was.

Inside as much panic as possible.

Well, no, yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, listen, if you have a cat and you live. Where's an area that doesn't get hit by tornadoes? Maine. Right. But you have people who may have cats, you still want to be warned when there's a cat at risk. So the next table phone system.

Yeah.

And if you're in Oklahoma, which is tornado alley, only the next TV phone system does that. Over my 12 years of being an author devoted to the small business entrepreneur, I've discovered the biggest challenge. And you know what it is? It's profitability. That's why I wrote Profit first and that's why I'm now hosting a two day workshop here at my offices in Boonton, New Jersey, where I will teach you and my team will teach you how to become permanently profitable. Go to profitfirstlive.com right now to get details again, profitfirstlive.com find the dates that work for you and I'll see you here at my office.

Do you realize that there is a cat named after Maine? The Maine coon.

Is it really?

Yeah, I heard they're big. The big ones, they're like dogs, dude.

Actually they're super fluffy.

Yeah.

Do you know Grumpy Cat died? No. Yeah.

Really?

Yeah. So here's truly, Truly died like a week ago as of this recording. So when this goes live, like six years ago. But Grumpy Cat died. And they did. They did one more post. That grumpy face and he says, my thoughts on heaven. Yeah. So I thought it was pretty good. All right, Kels, what'd you learn today in today's episode?

So I love this. I feel like it's just super actionable and effective. I particularly like where he wrote or he said, if you can rest and rest your mind, you can think better and make less mistakes. Because I think particularly for solo entrepreneurs, it's really hard to get to feel like you can hire somebody out, but you can hire somebody out really inexpensively through, like, fiverr or upwork or just to get one task off your plate so that it frees you to be in your genius zone. And that is the only way you're going to scale it up, you know?

Yep.

So even if one task, one part of your day, you can contract out to somebody else.

Jay. Unsewn.

Weird. I actually like what Kelsey said. You assume that people know the little nuanced things that go along with the procedures, but then they don't. So finding the gaps and then fixing them.

Yes.

Yeah. And that's with anything. Like, I mean, I'll use cooking example. When I tried teaching you something about cooking, how do you not know this? Like, how do you not know? Like, there's basic things that you're like, oh, I don't know that. I don't know. I've never heard of this. I'm like, you eat it all the time. Like, if you go to a restaurant, you'll know this.

Hold on. When. When. When you were teaching me cooking, like the. At the retreat?

Yeah. Yeah. Or just in general. Just. Just talking in general.

See how I retreated at the retreat?

Yeah.

Kelsey and I got teamed up. You had all these different teams, and I didn't even mean to, but then I. Kelsey did all the work.

Yeah. You were off, like, talking and chatting.

I bullshit with everybody, and I hurt my foot, and I'm like, I can't do anything.

You were taking pictures. I was taking quotes.

Dude. I made a photo album. That photo album exists, and there was.

Only, like, one picture from the cooking times.

I know. When Jeremy fell.

Yeah, I know. But. Yeah. So I assume that, like talking about cooking, there's basic principles that people know, but they. They don't. And it's like, okay, well, now I know that. Let me take a step back and we'll go. Go through it again.

I like that. J. Keystone. For me, it was just. He said, you know, entrepreneurs lived her whole life strapped, and then they closed the doors. And that wasn't his exact words, but that is the journey for most entrepreneurs. So that just kind of landed with me. Not a great aha, but just a. And I like to saying, you got to keep your documents actionable, simple, and alive. That was my takeaway. We want to know your takeaway to our listener friends, so you can post that in the show notes. We would love that. One more thing I'd love to do, Kels.

What?

It's. It's the fake products. You guys want to do that one. That's my favorite okay. Did I do the face blanket one? Is that new? Okay, so here's what this is. Callous. And Jay Club. I'm going to do three products. I used to do four. It's just too much. I can't make up this much stuff. So three products. One is fake, two are real, and you guys have to guess it's always the same way.

Okay.

Okay. And in no particular order, just as a reminder, because this may be new to some people, all these definitions or explanations of these products are my own words. And I do that for consistency sake, because if I just pulled it off the website, you clearly know what copy is professionally written versus myself. So. But what I put is basically factual. Sometimes I use poetic license. Face blanket blankets for the body may be comfortable, but they're ineffective. Jay shlone. The majority of body heat loss is from the head. With the face blanket, you will block out light, keep your entire body warm and look a little bit like an idiot, but it's worth it. Comes in royal blue and vibrant red.

Is there a space for the mouth so you can breathe?

It doesn't say. I can't tell you. I would. I don't know.

You know what you call it?

Why isn't it just a blanket?

It's a balaclava. That's what a face blanket is.

Could you. Could you guys stop criticizing? Let me continue on. The shoe umbrella. Who has time or the space to carry around a set of shoes? One for show and one for the weather and galoshes. So 1980, the shoe umbrella, patent pending, safely and securely attaches the tip of any shoe. No, it carries a fully functioning mini umbrella. Your shoes and feet stay dry while wearing your best shoes in the worst weather. Fits up to size 12. Okay, next one. A small book of random numbers organized in three columns of five digits each. You can use this simple reference tool to play the engaging game of guess what number I'm thinking of right now. The engaging game without either side cheating. See?

See?

See? Also used for picking lotteries. Or simple Sunday reading. Or simple Sunday reading.

I kind of want that product now.

17.99. Simple Sunday reading. All right, so j blown. The face blanket. The shoe umbrella. Or a small book of random numbers. Two of them are real.

All right, I know.

I think I'm going to pick the face blanket. The shoe umbrella thing. I can see being a gimmicky kind of novelty thing. And the number thing actually sounds like that would be kind of funny.

Yeah.

But really?

Yeah, I think it's ridiculous. Just random numbers.

Yeah.

It's still ridiculous.

It is ridic.

Yeah.

Hey, instead of drawing numbers out of hat, you just flip through the book.

So entrepreneurial. What do you. What'd you pick?

I picked the shoe umbrellas. I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. It's possible, but it's a dumb idea.

All right, so one of you right. One of you is right. One of you is wrong. The book of random numbers is a real product. $17.99 on Amazon. And they do suggest using it for guess what number I'm thinking of right now game. Which it's kind of lame, you know, here's what I would do just to keep it honest. I would think of a number and I'd write on a piece of paper, like, that's the method I would use. The real product is the face blanket, and it does have a snort hall in it. So you can hole hole. Snort hole has a snort hole, not hole hole. The shoe umbrella is a fake. They don't make that. It's a joke. I'm glad it's a joke product. So Kelsey wins today. Good job, Kelsey.

Thanks.

Can't touch this. All right, cows, do we have listener questions?

We sure do. This comes from D. Green. They're right. I do have a question regarding profit first, though, and I'm sure you've heard it before when starting off. How do you handle inventory purchases? Obviously, the company doesn't have a ton of money because it just started. And in order to make a profit, you need inventory to sell, but in order to buy the inventory, you need money. So it's kind of like the chicken and the chicken and the egg scenario in these cases. Should we just personally invest in the business to get started? How do you know how much inventory to get and when to let the business take over? These purchases being that way, Being that we are a clothing line which started only two months ago, answer to these questions would be super helpful.

D. Green. Super simple. Yes. You gotta put money in if you have to maintain inventory of some sort. And for you, in order to sell that inventory, you need the inventory in place and you're going to fund it. You should fund it and just take your money and set an account called the capex, or I would in this case call it an inventory account and say you have $10,000. Put the $10,000 in the inventory account. It's only used to procure inventory. Then you got to sell that inventory to replenish it and that's it. So you just have to infuse capital one time. Now, another method, too, D, is you can just go to potential buyers and offer a discounted price for pre orders, and so they can actually pay for the inventory using their money. By the way, that's my preferred method, because if you can sell it to them without the product existing, you know, they're committed to it. If you have to buy the inventory and then try selling, you can't. Oh, D, that's not a good day. So there's your two approaches. All right. All right.

Come on, man.

All right, Kelsey, anything else we got?

No.

All right, let's get the heck out of here.

Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening to us and leave a comment rating. Thank you.

You know, if you want to throw in that little thank you, you know, we got a brand new website@mikemcalowitz.com or mikemotorbike.com Jake Clublone.

Did it go up?

Yeah, I mean, not yet, but it's. It will. It'll be up this next week, so it'll been up for like six months by now, but it's really cool.

Yeah.

And there's a way to get materials and resources for the books. There's a way to get all these different tools we developed, and I'm doing a video series on my iPhone, starting to interview people where you can get kind of dripped information to help you elevate your entrepreneurship game. So that's it. Let's get out of here.

Bye, guys.

Bye, guys.

Sat.