Solo Welcome And What To Expect

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Good morning, good morning, good morning, everyone. I hope you guys are having a wonderful and fantastic day. It's another Friday morning and it is 8 15. Well, you know, a little bit later, so I apologize for that. Technical difficulties, dealing with clients, you know, the fun stuff that you have to do when you're a business owner on a Friday morning. But we're here with another episode of the Business Unscripted Podcast. And while you're probably looking and you're probably like, wait, what is going on? There's only one of you. Yep, that's it. It's just me today. You get to see, hear, and listen to my voice for another 45 minutes to an hour. But if you're a business owner, maybe you're an aspiring business owner, maybe you're somebody who wants to get into business and you don't know where to start. Well, you're here. You're in the right spot. The Business Lunch Crypto Podcast is hosted by myself as well as my co-host Duarn, who is one of my business partners. And we're here to talk about struggles, strategies, solutions, topics, things that we've worked through in our business, but also the things that we have helped others in our realm work through as well. So ultimately, you know what it comes down to is it comes down to, you know, just being there. You know, this is the first step. And I had this analogy I made the other day about whether it's a conversation, whether it's a mastermind session you're in, or whether you know it's a it's a training or a course that you're going through. And so you there's two ways that you can act or be in that situation. And I don't know why I came up with this, but I just had the idea I like water. You know, I like the idea of running water. And so you can either be a pond, and the pond visualize is you, your business, essentially your world, right? And so it's everybody around you, everybody that is impacted by you, influenced by you. And so there's one or two ways when you're approaching and you're learning something new. You can either be a pond that is in the middle of winter, and it's frozen, it's got a thick layer of ice on top of it, and really nothing in that moment is gonna influence the water underneath the ice. You know, there's no wind, no impact, nothing but like a crashing plane is gonna probably break that ice. Now, on the other hand, you can be a pond in the middle of the spring where it's still right now, but wind can affect that, right? And influence the water and the patterns in the water. Somebody, you know, a duck flying in and hitting that water is gonna affect that water. And so if you visualize that as yourself, your business, your world, and then you take something like this, a podcast, or you take something like a training or a webinar or something that somebody tells you, and that's a rock that you're holding in your hand right now. So you could be one of two ways towards that information, towards that training, towards that session. And you can either throw the rock, and if you're in the middle of winter and that's how you're being, you're cold, you're you're pretty much covered in ice, that rock, when it hits you, what's gonna happen? It's gonna bounce off and it's just gonna slide to the other end of the pond, and nothing's gonna happen, and you're gonna stay the same. And now, some of you are okay with that, and that's fine. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad, but it also means that you're not gonna change, you're not gonna be influenced, you're not gonna be you know, looking to make a shift if that's what you're here for. And so the other side, you're in the middle of spring, there's no ice on top of your water. So, what happens when you throw that rock or that piece of information into your world, into your world of influence? Well, it makes a ripple, right? The rock hits the water, which is you in that initial impact spot, it hits the water, and then what happens? It ripples out across all the vast areas of that pond. And that's you. It's you, your family, right? It's your your employees, it's your coworkers, it's your community, it's your business partners, right? All of that stuff is affected by that pond, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

By you.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

And whatever happens that you allow to influence it. So that rock, that piece of business information or that webinar, that training they went to, are are you gonna be cold in the middle of winter? Or are you gonna be, you know, open like spring and take it in and let it influence you and let you grow? So I had that conversation when I was I was teaching a course, and it is is a lot of people in there took it because myself, for a long time, I was probably that frozen pond, right? Where I would hear something and I would think, ah, that's probably impactful information, but I didn't let it, I didn't affect me, right? I didn't allow it to influence my decisions, to influence the actions that I took in my day-to-day life. But now I'm more like the spring, more like the summer. I allow different things that I'm hearing, different people that I'm listening to, to be able to have an influence on me, to make a change in the impacts that I'm doing in my day-to-day. What's crazy about the world that we live in right now, especially as business owners, small business owners as well, is that things change so quickly. And if you are covered in ice, you are gonna get passed by, you're gonna be so far behind that you might not be able to catch up. So ultimately it comes down to are you willing to grow? Are you willing to learn? Are you willing to be influenced so that you can have that ripple effect on everybody else in your world? So that you can actually make changes to yourself, make impacts with other people around you. But I hope everything's going well. I know you can't be here today. Client situation, but I get it. So but with that, I hope you can I hope you can kind of see the difference in the two.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

And here's the thing whenever you're in winter, it doesn't stay winter forever. Right? It gets to spring, it gets the summer.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

So you're you can allow yourself to thaw that layer of ice that you have currently right now over your pot. And allow things to start to influence you, allow things to begin to influence your decisions and direct you in ways that can make a rippled effect across you and your world. And so that's a I guess the first thing to start today is ultimately whenever you're you know listening to a podcast like this, or you're going through a training, or you're listening in a webinar, it's your choice how you want to act and how you're gonna react to that. Now, you, as the controller of yourself, have to decide what's important for me to take away and begin to make a change. You don't have to take everything. Everything I say is not gonna impact everybody. That's not the goal. Uh same thing for you. You may be watching and you may be having conversations with your clients or your customers or people around you, and everything you say isn't gonna be impactful to them in that moment. But the idea is that there's something there. That's what helps build up your expertise. That's what builds the trust that you have to build with your potential clients and your customers. Is that you continually say things, you continually make changes in your day-to-day that prove that you're willing to make the effort, you're willing to do what needs to be done in order to grow, in order to be successful, in order to make an impact to not only yourself, but to everybody around you, your employees, your family, your community. And so that's ultimately what it, you know, for me, what it comes down to is how do you make those ripple effects? How do you allow yourself to be that pond that's ready for influence, that pond that right now may feel still, may feel like nothing's happening. But all it takes is one rock, right? All it takes is one change to hit your pond, to hit your water surface that completely changes everything. And and, you know, so where are you at today?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Where are you at?

Failing Twice And Trying Again

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Well, with that, I hope you guys have a wonderful and amazing day. What I would say is if you have questions, right, drop them down below. We love to answer these live, especially I love these kind of where it's just me. Um, you know, when Dwarne and I get into it, we can go on forever. Dworn and I can have conversations. One of the reasons why we started this over a year ago. This is episode 52 of this podcast. And it's every week. We missed one week for the birth of my daughter. So this is essentially going into the second year. But we started this because we are already having these conversations every single week. We are meeting every week, talking business, talking shop, talking different strategies and things that we were working through with our clients, but also ourselves, right? We're business owners too. And I've run unsuccessful businesses. Businesses where one, I was too young, thought it was just gonna come, didn't realize, didn't go through all the ups and downs of business, just figured, oh, I saw somebody else be successful. I gotta be successful right out of college.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

And that was a lesson learned for sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Then second, I think it was I was too cocky. Yeah. You know, I was doing I was doing work for a bigger organization and thought, oh, I can just do this myself. Everything, you know, I didn't have to market, I didn't have to network, I didn't have to do anything. The things that are important to business that we talk about here all the time, I still don't know that yet. So I failed twice. Now, what you can do is some people, if they fail twice, they'll just say, you know what, I'm not meant to do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

They'll stop, they'll give up. But as many amazing people, smart people, successful people have said the only time that you truly fail is when you stop trying. Think about that. You only fail if you stop to try.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Because what happens if you continue to get up and push forward, you learn. You say, okay, that didn't work. What am I gonna do next time? And sometimes that requires you to put your tail between your legs, maybe go back, get a job for a little while, save up a little more money, build up a little more expertise, and then try again. But don't ever just throw in the towel. That's the only time in business and in life when you actually lose. Because if you continue to get up, if you continue to push forward, you continue to learn, you can make it happen. So here we are. I'm in the middle of the third effort, third try, third attempt of running a successful business. And for right now, we're good. I'm being successful, we're helping clients, we're doing everything that we want to do. Are we at where I want to be? No, not yet. But here's the thing if I stop, if I just accept that and say, well, I'm successful now, that means I'm gonna be successful for the next 10 years. I'm gonna fail. You have to continually evolve, you have to continually kind of move forward and shift. And so for me, I could I could fail next month. Who knows? So that fear of failure is not what's holding me back, it's actually what's keeping me growing, keeping me learning, keeping me evolving. Because I don't want to fail. I don't want to fail again. I want I don't want to feel like I did the first two times. I have a lot riding on it right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

But also that does take a lot out of you too. You know, as a business owner. I know it. I'm sure you know it as a business owner. You have a lot going through your head day to day.

Entrepreneur Stress And Real Support

SPEAKER_02 13:47

And so ultimately, you have to make sure that you also have people around you that you have that good support system that understand what you're going through. That understand what you're thinking about on a day-to-day basis. It's really hard to for somebody who's not in business, who doesn't have the stressors, the responsibilities of being a business owner, to truly understand what it's like on a regular basis for you. And I get that. You're in the right spot if that's you. And if if you want to particularly you have a conversation about it, reach out. Because if you don't have a good support system around you, you don't have somebody that is in your shoes, that understands everything that goes on on a regular basis for you in your head, you're gonna feel alone. And you can't do that. Because if you're alone, then you may feel and you may your likelihood of kind of falling into the traps, what you whatever they say, right? Depression, you know, negative mindset, all that stuff, it increases exponentially. And nothing against anybody who is in that employee mindset who works a regular, you know, day-to-day job. There's nothing wrong with that. They just don't understand that there is a lot more that goes into it. You know, when you go to a job and you have particular responsibilities, particular job description, well, that's all you have to worry about. You know, you go in and let's say, for example, you know, you're a receptionist or you are an accounting clerk. You know, you go in as an employee for that, and those are the only things you have to worry about. You pretty much know your monthly responsibilities, and they recur every month. Until you get maybe to the manager or even even senior managers and and C-suite, do you have a lot more of like the entrepreneurial type responsibilities? But even then, you're still segmented. You still have a specific duty that you're doing at that level. Whereas a small business owner like yourself watching this, it's different because you have to do all of that stuff. You have all of that stuff running through your head on a regular basis. What do I need to do for marketing? What do I got to do for invoicing? What do I have to do for client relations and HR and payroll? And where's my cash flow? Where's the next client coming from? Do we have all the documents we need from the new client to keep things going and to make a good impact for in the first 30 days so that they feel good about making the decision that they made? So, like all of these things are compounding in your head on a day-to-day basis. And it's not just one off, like these are daily thoughts that entrepreneurs like you and I, we go through. And you can't expect, because it's not fair to them either, somebody who goes into a job on a regular basis to truly understand. And if you're one of those people who are an employee and you're listening to this and you have somebody who is an entrepreneur in your world, in your realm, you have to understand that too. Give them that support that they're thinking of so much more, especially if it's your significant other, your spouse, and you don't understand it. Just know that there are a thousand thoughts a minute that go in to their mind every day about what they need to do, what they should be doing, what they're not doing, you know, the lack of growth maybe that they set for themselves that they're not able to meet. If they're the main breadwinner, you know, how what happens if I fail? You know, where's the next money? You know, the revenue coming in, all those things, because they don't want to let you down. The significant other rate the spouse. They don't want you to let you down either, because you're riding on them as well. So you have to understand sometimes everything that goes on in their head. And it's not just a typical employee mindset. And it takes communication, it takes discussion. I had this client this conversation with a client recently. How do you get through to your significant other about everything that goes on on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_01 18:53

And it's as simple as just be open. And some of it comes with with don't attack. Be understanding.

Stop Being The Bottleneck

SPEAKER_02 19:06

You know, so as an entrepreneur, for me, I forget the simple things sometimes. I forget to take the trash out. I forget to, you know, that I put my drink down on the table because I got distracted because my mind went somewhere else and I was, you know, responding to an email from a client, or I was doing something for my marketing or something like that. And my mind just forgets. So you have to be understanding. Don't be a tacking, you know, like, oh my God, I can't believe you left that drink on the counter again. And I'll say this to my fiance, right? She is that way. It wasn't easy at the beginning for her to be that way. And I think it's always still going to be a work in progress. And it's a work in progress on my hand. I'm not saying just because I'm a business owner that I get a pass to just forget all the easy stuff. A lot of times it's on me too. To remember when I see the trash to just do it and not say, oh, I'll get to that later. Or whatever it is at home that we are both responsible for. But you do have to understand that there's a lot of things as my as an entrepreneur that go through our head that a typical employee minded mindset type employee and human does not think about on a regular basis. They go into work, they know they're going to get paid in two weeks. They know if they put in 40 hours, that they're going to get paid 40 hours. Well, a business owner, if you put in 60, you don't know that you're going to get paid 60. But you have to put into work because the effort that you're putting in today, the outreaches, the follow-ups, the work that you're doing today, well, typically that takes 60, 90, 120 days for it to actually pay off. And so you have to put in the hours today in order to get the output right and the outcomes from that down the road. And if you're trying to trade your time for money as an entrepreneur, all you're gonna end up doing is you're gonna end up creating this endless job for yourself, right? Like a prison in your own business. Because if your time is what's actually making money in the business, you're not running a business. You're running a job. And you're basically responsible for all these extra stressors to just be a slave to your business. So if you actually want to grow something that's scalable, you have to start thinking like a CEO. You have to start thinking, how do I get myself out of the day-to-day? How do I get myself out of everything relying on me?

SPEAKER_01 22:18

And sometimes that's hard, isn't it?

Cash Management And Knowing Numbers

SPEAKER_02 22:23

If you're watching this right now, and that's you, I want you to actually think through the weekly processes, the client. Deliverables, the meetings, et cetera, that you have to do, how much of it relies on you to actually support your clients or your customers? If it's all on you and your ultimate goal is to try and grow something bigger to have a greater impact, then you have to start documenting now your processes. You actually have to start thinking, what am I going to outsource? What am I going to free my time up? I've had so many conversations with clients recently and in the past that they're the bottleneck. Everything flows through them. Pricing decisions, estimates, invoicing, new employee decisions. If you have a team around you, but yet everything still relies on you, what exactly are you doing? You're locking yourself into a job. You can't ever get away. And so these are things that you need to think about. If you're just listening to this and you're just getting started, or maybe you're in your first year or two in business, you should still think of that end state. What is your ultimate goal for your business? Why did you get into business? What was that initial feeling for you when you got into business that encouraged you to finally take that leap if this is your first shot? And you have to think of what that end state is because it's going to drive all your decisions leading up to that. I say this too. It's like trying to go on vacation. If you start a business and you don't think of your end state and you're just trying to do the day-to-day, right? It's like going on vacation without having a destination in mind. You can't do it, right? Especially nowadays, you need to plug in where you're going in order to get the best price on whether it's a plane, a boat, a car, you got a rental car, a train, you know, a train. You need to know how you're going to get there. And so you have to have that destination. You have to have that roadmap. And then once you decide the medium of how you're going to get there, the mode of transportation, well, now what's the direction? What's that map look like? And I'm old as shit. So I remember when we went on family vacations, you used to have to go to like triple A. And you used to have to get like the little trip tick, like map. And you because we didn't have phones, right? We didn't have Google and all this stuff that you know everybody gets spoiled by now. Me, myself, and I. But you used to have to go get a map, and the person would like actually highlight right the m the route from where you are and where you wanted to go. And they knew where the construction zones were, so they would actually help detour you because it didn't automatically detour you like we have right now. We're so spoiled with our navigation systems in our car nowadays. But that's you and your business right now. You're trying to take a trip, you're trying to get to that end goal that you've set for your business, but you have no map. You have no way of knowing how you're gonna get from A to Z. You're just trying to wing it, and that's the worst thing you can do. Because you're like me, a business owner who comes from one area of expertise, you're not gonna know everything right from the get-go. It's really hard for you to know everything right from the get-go. So, how do you expect that you're gonna get from A to Z right from the get-go without understanding what the map looks like and how you need to get there?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

It's hard. Business is hard. It's a reality.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

It's not easy. A day-to-day, you know, putting 12-hour days in, not knowing if you're gonna get a client that day or not, it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

It's the reality of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

And still the reality of it is that more than half of you and I included in that stat are more likely to fail. You're 82%. 82% of business owners fail because they don't have great cash management in their business. They have one account, they try to run everything out of that account. When there's money in there, they think they have money and they spend it, and they they think they're investing in things that are good for their business, but ultimately it ends up hurting them in the end, and it ultimately ends their demise. Because what they forgot, what they forgot was, well, the tax man, tax man still wants his money, whether or not you have it in the bank account or not from the year, even though you think you were investing it in something that was impactful to your business, and now it turns into there's no ROI. I have had many clients recently where they're catching up on errors that they've made from years ago. They will catch up with you. The bookkeeping errors, the cash flow errors, the financial errors that you have going on on your tax return, et cetera, it's going to catch up with you eventually. You are better off doing it right from the get-go. But if you can't do it from the get-go, then the next best thing is doing it right now. Correcting it now and getting a better system, better process for yourself in place now to understand your margins, your pricing, your numbers in your business. And I'm not just saying that just because that's what partly of what we do. I'm saying it because it's the most impactful piece of information that you need to know about your business is your numbers, is your pricing, is your margin. Because all of that affects everything else that happens in your business. It affects whether you can invest in a new employee, it affects if you can market and do more. Everybody says, well, no, no, no, marketing, right? Advertising is the number one thing that you need to know in your business.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Marketing is the number one thing that you need to do to grow. Well, marketing is good when it works. And if it works for you, are you ready for it? Because that's the other piece. If you if you grow and you scale through marketing, an offer that is not making you money, the margins off, is that actually working for you? Or is it just making you do more work for less outcome?

Ads Fail Without Operations

Pricing Math That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Right? So yeah, I agree. Advertising can work. Advertising does work. I'm not saying it doesn't, advertising does work. But the more important thing that you need to have in place first is your systems, your back, your back end, your finances, right? The offer, the pricing, all of that has to be in place first before you can scale through advertising. But what so many small business owners get into the trap of is they try to advertise first without having the processes baked out. Because what happens if you turn on an ad for yourself right now? If you turn on an ad for your business and you got 20 new clients today and it worked and it was great, could you service them if you're a service type industry, or even if you're not, could you handle 20 new clients right now if your advertising worked for you without causing a collapse of the system or without causing chaos on the back end? Or do you know when that metric is when you have to hire a new employee? Do you have your onboarding processes baked in, or are you going to be winging it for all 20 of those new clients? You see, that's the piece that needs to be in place first before you turn on advertising to try and scale. You need your systems baked, you need your systems vetted in order for you to actually make advertising work for you in your business. So before you go out and try to do ads as a business owner, before you go out and try to listen to all these gurus, that some are probably really successful. But they're going to try to market you and tell you this is the next best thing, but they don't want, they're not asking. And let me take that back. Maybe the good ones do. I haven't had a conversation with one yet. But maybe the good ones actually ask, do you have your systems in place? Is your operations smooth? So if you were to bring in another 10 to 20 clients, can you service them effectively? Because that's the number one question that any advertiser should be asking somebody. But more often than not, they just want your money. They just want you to invest in their program, in their system. So you have to take control of it yourself. Or I'll tell you right now, do it yourself. You have to ask yourself right now, do I have the appropriate back-end systems to be able to support an influx of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 new clients? At least a system developed so that you know when I get client 14, because I know each one of my employees can handle 20, but when I get the 14, I need to start hiring because it takes me two to three weeks to find somebody and train them. And then do you have the training in place so that they can hit the ground running with what they need to do when they start working with your clients? That's what needs to be thought about first. That's what needs to be developed, along with understanding your pricing. Let me give you a scenario I just worked with a client. The biggest thing was they're busy. They're just like you, they're a small business owner. They're working the day-to-day, they're doing the jobs, they're they're working in their business a ton. And so when they do their estimates, the estimates were based off of a price that was old. It was outdated. But they were still using it because they thought, well, I was getting a 40% margin before. So I if I just use the same number, I'm still gonna get a 40% margin. So when we broke it down, we sat down and we actually worked through about five recent invoice estimates that were put out. And we actually calculated what went into those jobs based on the estimate. And not just a direct cost of goods sold, right? But when you price things, you have to include a lot of those indirects that still are only being paid because you're doing that service line or you're doing that project. And by then, when we actually included like insurance, repairs, and maintenance, you know, depreciation on the assets that are being used in order to service the actual job, then they only realized they were getting a 20% margin on these jobs when they were expecting 40. It's a huge shift. Even if you're you know a$200,000 company, if you're only getting 20% instead of 40%, that's 40 grand. And if you're a profitable organization, even if you're a break-even organization, all of that gross profit goes directly to you, the business owner, to your profit, you're not your net profit at the end of the day. Because you're already paying for all the overhead out of the small gross margin that you already have now. So then any increase in your gross profit goes directly to you, goes directly to your bank account. That's why it's so important to understand these numbers. Because a dollar increase in your gross profit, if you are a profitable organization, goes directly to your bottom line. So if you're a$200,000 business and you're making, let's say, 5% net profit, so you're you made 10 grand last year, a 20% increase, right? So going from 20 to 40%, which is what you think you should do. So that's really right, a hundred percent increase in your gross profit. That extra forty thousand dollars is a 500% increase in your net profit. Because you're going from$10,000 to$50,000 in net profit.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Sorry, 400%. That's what I get for doing math off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Early in the morning. But you're going from$10,000 to$50,000 in net profit by just making a 20% increase in your gross profit, which is what you should be. And that's his min. You know, so a lot of people, when they when they think of what their gross profit margin should be, they look at their industry and they say, what's the average? And then they set that average as their goal. But did you get into business to be just average? No. You want to shoot for higher because an average means that about 50% of businesses are doing better than that. So do you want to just be average or do you want to actually level up? Do you want to get higher? So your goal shouldn't just be the average, that should be your floor. Your floor should be the average. And then from there, you work to identify how can I get to 45, how can I get to 50. And you do that one of two ways. Either you work with your direct cost of goods, if you have a lot of cost of goods sold, whether it's your direct labor to be more efficient, whether it's your contracts with your materials, or you look at your pricing. Because if you look at your pricing and you realize that your margin isn't where it needs to be, then you need to increase your price. If the other two direct labor and direct costs are they are where they are. But so many people are so afraid to increase their price. They're so afraid because they're they're gonna lose their clients. They're like, they're they're gonna be they're I hear it all the time. Dave, Dave, if I raise my price 5%, people are just gonna they're gonna freak out and they're gonna leave.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Really? I don't think so. Because if you valued yourself, you valued the outcome, the support, the impact that you can make with your clients, that price is worth it. And then you just have to deliver, right? But you have to believe it first, and that's the hiccup.

Say No To Money Losing Work

SPEAKER_02 38:45

If you don't believe your price, your clients won't believe your price either. But you have to believe it first, and that's the first hurdle to get over when it comes to your pricing. And so the same client had a big opportunity this year to work with a big client that was going to provide a significant increase in their business and their revenue. Uh, they did a trial at the end of last year, at the end of the season. And the pricing that they gave them was just typical old pricing from earlier in the year without all the extra sort of support, direct attention, everything that they wanted to give that kind of set them apart. But they didn't add in and they weren't thinking through in that moment what all that costs looked like. And so before we were able to work with them and get ready for this contract discussion this year, we had to go through all that. We had to actually break it down. If you were to do the number of services or support tasks that are going to be expected of you, what are you gonna need? Because what you don't want to do, and this is that decision point, is you don't want to bring on this new opportunity that is essentially gonna double your business. But then it affects everything else that's made you what you are today. Because essentially, then it's never gonna double your business, it's just gonna replace stuff that you already were doing. So you have to think differently. You have to think, well, well, if I'm gonna do this, I now need to add staff. I now need to add another truck, or I now need to add another office location or another service, something. It's going to require you to think differently. You can't think, well, I just locked in this huge contract, I'm just gonna keep things the same. I'm gonna price it as today. You have to add in all those new costs that are gonna be associated with that contract to provide the level of service that kept them happy with the initial trial in the first place. And so when we actually walk through it, we actually work through the exercise. We determined that the price that they were given last year would only result in about a 1% gross profit margin on some jobs. And other jobs, they would actually be paying the contractor essentially to do work for them. And initially, the idea was well, I don't want to do a price increase. I know, I know the guy, he he's probably not gonna go for it. Great. Well, now that you know the numbers, if he's not gonna go for it, you're not gonna do the job. And again, by knowing your numbers in your business, this allows you to make these decisions, it allows you to have the comfort knowing that you said no because it was going to lose you money. And I had this back and forth with I don't remember, it was a couple months ago, right? Where hey there, Andrees. Sorry, man, appreciate it. Hope you have a good day too. And real king, man, how you doing? If you're watching, watching the replay, brother, appreciate you being here. But but ultimately, you had this this kind of back and forth with one of one of the guests the other day, not the other day, sorry, and uh the a few months ago, and they were saying how as a business owner, you should take jobs that lose you money sometimes. And my it was just completely crazy to me because it made zero sense. Why would you ever take a job that loses you money? That you literally have to pay in order to do the work. Why would you do that? And they were trying to make these reasonings that, you know, especially if you have employees, that you, you know, you have to, you know, do these jobs that are gonna lose you money so that you can keep your employees working. I mean, no, like that just makes no sense. Like, why would I waste my time and a job that's gonna lose me money when I can find jobs that would make me money in the same period? And if I was gonna lose money, wouldn't I just say, here guys, here's a couple hundred bucks for the week, that you don't have to come into work this week? Instead of me making them work, me paying them, and then having to still come out with more money out of my pocket. Like that makes zero sense. Why anybody, unless you don't know your numbers and you don't know how to price, or maybe you have an old outdated pricing system where you're still trying to do it manually. That's the only reason that you should ever probably end up in a job that's losing you money. Because if you have a good system, you have a good process, all the stuff we've sort of been talking about this morning, and you built it repeatable into your processes on a day-to-day basis, you should never lose money on jobs. You should always be able to get the gross profit that you need to be successful. And so, back to the example, we were able to arm the client with the information needed to have the conversation about where the pricing needs to go. And gave a couple options, and ultimately, in the end, they ended up getting about a 25% price boost that resulted and it will result in about a 20% gross profit margin. Now, is it huge for the job? No. But it's huge for the business owner, it's huge for building the relationship with this new contractor. And so that 20, 25%, I mean, that might result in you know, anywhere from 30 to 50,000, depending on the number of jobs. And that's huge. Where before, they would have been barely breaking even if they just kept their price the same. So they would have added all this extra work, all this extra team members. All this extra stress of scheduling and all this stuff into their business for what? For the same money in the cash account that they have now? It would have made it worse, actually. So in the end, you have to build these processes in place. You have to build these things into your business. And if you don't, you'll end up in that situation. You'll end up pricing yourself out of a business. So don't guess on your pricing.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Don't guess on estimates that you're giving to potential clients. Be realistic.

Questions, Guests, And Final Challenge

SPEAKER_02 45:53

And if it results in you not getting that job, great, because it's not going to cost you money. It's not going to cost you time. Because those are the two things, the two most valuable resources in your business. The first is obviously cash flow. Don't just take a job because you feel like, well, I need this$10,000 job. And then think that you have$10,000 coming in. Because in reality, if you don't know your numbers, that may only result in two grand for you. But you're trying to solve a$5,000 hole. And you think you solved it by signing a$10,000 job. But if you don't know your numbers, now you're starting to take some of those, you know, cost of goods sold and you're spending it on other items before paying for the job. And now you end up, you dig a bigger hole for yourself. So you have to understand when you signed, don't just look at the top line. You need to understand your gross profit on that job because that's the number that truly begins to run your operations and help you solve holes if you do have a hole in your business right now.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Not the top line.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

It's just me for that long. But I encourage you to take something from today's episode. Whether it was pricing, whether it was the systems, whether it was the operations, anything. See yourself as that spring, that summer pond that is willing to accept that stone of information or that webinar or that teaching being thrown into their pond that affects them, that makes you change and have those ripple effects to everybody around you in your world. Encourage you to think through that today, to tomorrow. And what are you going to do differently? What are you going to do differently tomorrow than you are doing today that's going to have an effect on not only you, but everybody around you? So, with that, I hope you guys have a wonderful and amazing day. I hope you have a great week. Look forward to seeing you again next week. Dwarren will hopefully be back. If you're interested in being in a guest on the show, if you're a business owner and you have some educational topic or information that you want to have a conversation about, we encourage you down below. There is a link for you to join one of the future episodes. We'll have a conversation, see if it makes sense for you to, you know, kind of fit with the show and with the jive. But if you have questions, share them. You can send us an email, or you can just shoot it down below in the comments. Or if you're connected with us, DM us, either me or Dwarne. And we'll either directly answer your question, or if we feel like it's a question that would be impactful for the masses, we will answer it live on the show as well. But with that, I hope you have a great week. I appreciate you all being here. Again, we're on a mission to impact a thousand business owners by the end of 2028 with Triumph Business Solutions. So hopefully we're on we're on the path for that. We're on that journey. So if you got something from today, mind sharing it? Share down below what was the most impactful thing that you took out of today's episode. And then do me a favor. Like the video, make sure you're subscribed, and then share it. Tag somebody. You don't know who's in your network, right? That's a business owner that might also take something from today's show. Appreciate it. Now, until then, hope you have a wonderful one. And until then, I'll see you everybody in the next one. See everybody.