 There you go. Hello everybody. I'm Liz Trotter and today I have Pam Clyde co-hosting with me and we're both really excited to bring on Dene Wolf and Dene is going to talk to us today about Scaling the Smart Way. You know, this is like a really big deal. Everybody talks about especially in the last I don't know maybe four or five years. I want to scale I want to scale this business. I'm gonna grow it I'm gonna, you know, do all these things but nobody really knows what that means. I mean They don't right Dene? Yeah, they don't they think that means They think all it means is I'm gonna have a big company. That's that's all they think but it's so much more than that So looking forward to having you tell us all of the stuff. What does your title say? Mine is cut off as well. So Liz clean profit bit Yeah Pam Clyde, what's you're supposed to say? Oh, I don't know My company, I don't know. Yeah Title well, actually, I don't know that you ever I don't think you've ever co-hosted before. Have you come now? I haven't. Oh, so we'll we'll do a quick intro there. Hey, Deneet Deneet is always She always says hi Most of the people especially all of our LinkedIn followers. They never say anything I don't know why LinkedIn is shy, but they are Dreaming to LinkedIn. Yeah, uh-huh And you can't you or do you? Yeah, we do YouTube LinkedIn We have four let's see one two three four five Facebook pages Three YouTube channels and a LinkedIn and LinkedIn. Yeah. Hey, man. Good to see you Yeah, it's kind of a hassle to do LinkedIn. Just FYI Deneet. It takes a little bit of work, but it's worth it, right? Yeah, all right, so before we get started on Anybody have anything else that's going on heard any kind of cool news anything? I heard something about um, the uh convention that I'm not sure everybody knows there are no buses running this year and no shuttles So if you're going to convention everybody just know that you Either want to stay at bat least which is the hotel of choice for the convention because it's an easy tram ride If you're there easy walk easy tram ride or know that you don't have to take lift or uber Are either of you ladies going to the convention? I'm not able to this year, but I want to know so I'm familiar. Have you ever been? No Now we're having on the business conference and I feel like I keep getting pregnant, so Well, we got it. We got to get you to the issa convention. You would be a hit there. Oh my Okay, we need to get you on stage too. I think I'm going to be on the committee next year So I've got you on my list This is totally a side note, but I just started working with a brand new life coach and I just filled out her intake before here And she said gold and I said speaking on stage. So that's kind of crazy that you just Nice We're already manifesting. Good job. Good job Um, I had a question today. Someone was asking about p.m. This was in group Heather was asking about What was she asking about something about The nurse Are you talking about that one? No the idol alone I'm a miss that one and we were talking about this with you last week danae. So I thought oh, I'll just save that question for danae Um, actually, maybe I'll go look for it. Wow Actually, p.m. Could you my favor? You can stay live But could you go check it out and see what she asked she wanted to know something I was like, oh, we'll ask danae. She'll know she'll have the goods for us Um, all right, and so I don't think there was anything else big going on with Uh convention or anywhere else. So you can probably jump into it. What are you drinking there? danae just water That's why I'm drinking bubble water I always drink bubble water and I drink a lot of it. I'm always drinking something. I think I have an oral fixation problem I can't stay away from my my straws. All right, so danae Um, did you want to tell us a little bit about you since you haven't been on smart business moves before Tell everybody a little bit who you are and we'll get hammered a bit too. Yeah So my name is danae wolf. I am a financial clarity coach and a profit strategist Which means that I help entrepreneurs like you guys Understand the money side of your business so that you can increase profits and decrease stress Typically I find with those of us with the entrepreneurial spirit We tend to be more of creatives. So we tend to Not like the number side of things. We don't like deal with anything with accounting So I really come in and try to break it down into words We can all understand and really highlight The benefits of it and how it can not only change the trajectory of your company, but also your life And I'm okay. I gotta interrupt. I gotta interrupt real quick. I interrupt a lot danae. You'll see My husband says I do that Oh good, then we'll be like going back to work. All right, so I have to interrupt about one thing You said you try really hard to make it easy to understand so that for people And I just want to interrupt and say I don't know about trying but you succeed. You do make it easy to understand So danae did a presentation for one of our success groups last was that last week friday? Yeah Friday i'm so like And everybody really loved it thought that you made it super easy to understand and made it It seemed like a lot of sense. So I just wanted to say that for everybody who's thinking Yeah, she says that but Is it really true? No, we're really true. So I can kind of tell already right so down there. Hey, linda Did you were you able to find it? Pam now? I'm gonna let you finish On the erc next credit question. Yes, that's what The idea you said the ertc, right? Yeah, I thought she Amazing program. I mean, I've literally Gotten clients like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wow. It's a great program. What was her question? So she said she keeps hearing about it and heard that they changed the rules like everything else Can anybody give us any info on that? Yeah So she's probably they just made a change. That's probably what she just recently heard So they were going to have it extend through 2021 and they just I want to say That was like a week ago. So that's most likely what she heard. They just cut it off So it's done now. But what the program was And when I say it's done Let me be clear You can still take advantage of it for the the past two, but it's not like moving forward We're not using it anymore. But essentially it's a program. It's a tax credit And by tax credit, I mean you're going to get a check in the mail from the government For 50 percent of your payroll for 2020 75 percent of your payroll for 2021 There's a I'm simplifying there's a lot more into it But that you can literally walk away with thousands and thousands of dollars and you just amend your payroll forms And they'll send you a check. I was getting checks About it goes quarterly. I was getting them for clients about six to seven weeks when the quarter ends That's majorly slowed down. I just had a client Just now get a check for first quarter of this year So they're ramped up a lot of that's probably why they cut it off because everybody's taking advantage of it But I strongly Encourage people if you have w2 employees Your revenues are down You need to look at it. It's a great great program and I definitely have I'm gonna look I'm gonna search my youtube book because I definitely have trainings on it So if our revenue increased in a that we didn't qualify, is that right? So you could qualify they changed there was a lot of changes So there's a court there's certain quarters where that's not going to be a requirement. It all started the first quarter of 2020 because that would have taken because covid people's gonna get closed down in march So um somewhere around that march 6 time, you know, certain townships were closing So around that time, there's all kinds of various Requirements if the government made you close it, but you held people on and I have a chart somewhere I'm gonna look through my um my content while we're on here, but yeah, if you could show us that It's really I mean you're gonna make A lot of like I literally off the top of my head like I have one client who legit got $200,000 That's so awesome. Wow I know that there are a lot of companies out there that you can hire to Do your ertc yeah But most of the ones that I have heard of charge an arm and a leg. How do you charge to do it? So what I did Was if you were Not a client um, we would just charge you an hourly rate And for that we would explain how all of it works. I've got a whole calculator. We have this It's it's a process. Okay. I'm not gonna lie. It's a process Yeah, and we just charged people an hourly rate went over this spreadsheet with them and then had them go back to their tax Repair to do that. Um, but for people who are our in-house clients They got lower fees, but we actually filed it for them But we're not filing for people who Are not our in-house clients, but we do all the calculation. So it's very easy for you to just give it to your accountant. It was a very The the needle was moving all the time. It was very tedious. I Understand why a lot of accountants didn't want to do it. I don't quite respect it, but I understand it Um, but it worked for us that we put the time in we developed a tool I've got this google sheet that ought to happen. It's it so we did it But I just wasn't comfortable, you know signing my name on your taxes when I didn't prepare your financials Um, and if you use gusto gusto did gusto is a payroll company They honestly did a phenomenal job with it and they tracked it for you and they Filed it for you and they'll amend it for you. They were really great to work with. I know other payroll companies You can talk to them about it. I don't know Like personal experience with it, but I if you have gusto, call them. They were amazing And I'll have to find my my videos on it because I went through We did a lot of content on it because it was it's an amazing it really you're good at videos. So I'm guessing that They you have videos that they're gonna be amazing for anybody who doesn't know hasn't worked with danae One of the very unique things that she does in her business that I might catch driving crazy I love One of the things that she does is every month correct me if I get this wrong or elaborate danae um every month if you're a client of hers They do your p&l. They balance all your accounts. They do all of the work But then they send you a video. Yeah Telling you everything that was done and what are the next steps what you should be working on the numbers that you should be looking at and they Spoon feed you Your accounting work so that you can actually do it correctly without having to Take an accounting class or know all of the different things that everybody tells us we need to know. So Amazing awesome. I'm looking forward to it. I just find out Yeah, so Is actually on here Pam tell tell the audience a little bit about who you are where you are why you're on here Oh, sure So I'm Pam Clyde with britland cleaning and we are based out of the austin texas area And started my business about 14 years ago started hiring A little about 2001 ish and that was i'm sorry 2011 ish and that was kind of a long process to try to get to where I am today, but um joined liz's group about Seven months ago or so and that's been phenomenal um, and then found denay uh last friday, so I'm always looking for ways to streamline and automate and delegate And denay one of the things that you're going to love about working with pam is Pam is growing like a crazy person right now How much growth are you seeing pam? It's like I know it's kind of crazy It's amazing So right before pandemic you guys I had kind of I had dwindled down to just me and one cleaner and literally in february of 2020 And then when other businesses were shutting down we stayed open We actually gained some clients that you know from cusp companies that that closed down Um had the electrostatic sprayer as well, which it was a big boost, but anyway We quadrupled in about I guess eight months or something. I mean like huge growth And now you're just do do still growing. Yeah, which is another good reason to have you on here while we're going to have denay talking to us Right, yeah, and I found on my youtube. I know when you can't drop links in stream yard unless you know how to do it I actually don't know Actually got a really good question so She is saying You can't With the erotc if you got the ppp. I know there's all kinds of acronyms here But if you got the ppp so to me they did they said you couldn't get both Then they unset it and said you could get both But you couldn't overlap them so you really had to Strategize to make sure that when you filed for your ppp forgiveness That you maximized both and this was something that could be a challenge and again Why a lot of accountants again, I understand it, but don't respect it But you have to make sure that you're strategizing to maximize To get the maximum erotc that you can and to get the maximum ppp because essentially the government is giving you Between 50 and 75 percent refund on payroll you paid But if you paid for it with ppp, then they're not going to reimburse that So you just had to work the timing so you legally can Do both but you have to strategize Okay, and for everybody who didn't strategize and you're like, oh no, I didn't strategize. That's okay You will still get money so still And your your payroll tax forms and if you guys go to youtube and go to the profit factor That's my youtube channel and you'll see it um It was I think in march of this year. You'll see erotc. It says like up to 19,000 Um for person and then I have like a download you can get a free calculator where you can type in your payroll Um, but guys reach out to me send me a quick message and I can tell you like very quickly if you're going to qualify or not Okay, awesome. So you guys all heard that pan help me announce that in groups, right? That makes that happen. Okay, awesome. Um, all right. So I think we did all of our business stuff today Dine take us through what you want to tell tell us about and teach us about Scaling the right way the smart way Yes So I love this topic because for me was being super focused on the cleaning industry One of the things that I find and I'm being very stereotypical here But in my experience the bulk Of the entrepreneurs I encounter It was really a business that was built out of necessity for flexibility in their schedules Most of the time I'm speaking to women Most of the time they were mothers who were leaving a corporate job because they needed that kind of flexibility because they were mom So that's usually what I'm encountering and they're like I didn't know What kind of business to start? I wasn't sure what my skillset would be as an entrepreneur and I thought well I know how to clean usually the story that I get and what happens is you start this service company and It's snowballs. It's snowballs and all of a sudden you wake up one day and you are completely running an empire and in that process that's scaling I call it growing pain There's a lot of growing pains that happen because I don't sometimes I meet Entrepreneurs who are like no no no I I set my eye on the prize I was going to build a million dollar business, but usually people are like It just the phone started running off the hook and it just it's snowballed at snowball that usually kind of accidentally happens because You guys are selling Something that I consider a necessity. I think it back in the day might have been more so a luxury um But today your average family is understanding that they they need help with this stuff So family a current theme in society people are talking more about spending more quality time with your family and you know outsourcing so it's become more mainstream and especially With COVID right I saw my first hand experience. I'm only one person so I'm stereotyping but Most of the cleaning businesses I encountered exploded during COVID um And you it was really sinker or swim there. They either like obliterated themselves or blew up to a level They never really thought possible and what happens is when you all of the sudden scale and you maybe go from you know A couple thousand dollars a month in sales to now you're hitting 10 now you're hitting 15 20 and all of a sudden You wake up and you're like I've I believe you said Pam quadruples Where I was That's a very different business, right? So what you were running four months ago might not be What you're running now, you know, it's completely different and you can't treat them the same way, right? So that's saying what got you here won't get you there, right? You have to operate By the way And I think that I'm never good at remembering where I I get the quote um, but I think that In this process to scale these growing pains Can really make or break you first of all they take an emotional toll. It's a mental toll There's all kinds of things that are going on when we kind of you know Amp up like this and end up with a business doing quadruple what we were before But what we have to do is grow in a smart way because I have seen Too much business destroy a company And it sounds impossible But it's very real that someone could scale too fast and they crumble Because they weren't built for it and that foundation just like building a house that if that foundation isn't rock solid And now you start all of a sudden adding on, you know, you're you're adding all of these additions to the home It's going to crumble because you didn't build the right foundation And what we want to do Is we always want to make sure that we're on solid ground And that we are operating our business for the company we want tomorrow not the one we have today But what happens is a lot of us have heard that right what happens is when we say that immediately People get into this shiny object syndrome and what happens in the cleaning industry is We get into this idea of okay. Well, I want to be something. I hear all the time I want to be a million dollar cleaning company. It's like that's the goal. That's what we're chasing That's what we want to do. They don't really know why they want to do that They just it's like a badge of honor. They want to do that so now They're coming from a place of well, I need this I need that I need this So what's this that I need a fleet of cars wrapped in my logo I need two offices. I need an operations manager a virtual assistant a field super vet They need they need they need all these things because it went from This business i'm starting for flexibility with my kids to Oh my god, I'm a boss bitch. I need all Like it really it's one minute. It's oh, I just want to be able to pick up my kids from school to You know domination like they complete like it changes very quickly and For some reason the solution is to throw money at the problem I know why I know why though. Dine. I don't know why yeah, I know why Because when and this is all over the place So we talk about this a lot in group when people don't know what to do What to get what to ask for? The answer is always money because when is money wrong? If you have a problem at the store and you're angry, what do you ask for? Do you ask for anything other than money? No, you ask for money Even though money is not going to make you happy You're going to get all your money back and you're still going to be Just peed right because money's not the answer But we always think money's the answer. So there you go. Dine. That's why we always think money's the answer And we have money in our problems and what I always tell my clients is Money won't fix your problem if the problem is you So if you are unable to balance your business and save and be profitable At $10,000 a month in revenue when you get to a hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue You're still not going to be able to save and be profitable Because the problem is you it wasn't that I need to go down and chase more revenue and get more sales and get more clients That's not going to fix it that operations manager is going to fix it that va isn't going to fix it You have to fix it and when you are running a everybody's cleaning companies, right? No, actually not Okay, we do have some other service, but I do want to say real quick before you get going Is what we tell people when they're in that situation exactly the situation that you were just talking about Is if you're not profitable at ten thousand dollars, you're not going to be profitable at a hundred thousand dollars. Here's the thing y'all You're going broke faster at a hundred thousand dollars. Then you were Yes, you can hold on longer To a Right, but at a hundred thousand. Ah, it's harder faster. It's worse. All right Yeah, the damage is is much much more Yeah, so if you're able to from the beginning right when we are dealing with service-based businesses If you guys are product-based a little bit different, but All service perfect. So when we're dealing with a service-based business We are going to have a significant amount of money Going out the door right off the bat just in order to make sure That we pay the service provider now It might be you it might be one of your cleaning people it might whatever industry you're in But somebody had to fulfill the service, right? It's not a product situation Where if you sold five products or one product, right, you just hit the machine Like it's not a factory like that, right? So it's a bit different when we're dealing with service-based Usually we're going to see between 50 and 55 percent Right out the door Just in order to make sure that We paid the cleaner and had the cleaning supplied. So now what's left of that piece of the pie Is what has to pay for everything else? So until you reach a certain point You have to make sure that you can pay for all of those other things. Well, what are the other things? They're all of the operational expenses. So the key to running a successful service-based business Is keeping those operational costs at bay because there's only so much we can do at the service costs, right? I mean, I can guarantee you if you're trying to give your cleaners a 20 cut. No one's going to work for you, right? Especially not today Right and regardless whatever service you are in if you are Underpaying the service provider. You're going to go out of business So if you have standards of the type of service that you would like to provide the reality is You've got at least half going out the door for that Maybe you're pulling off a 40 45 percent if you're below I would seriously Evaluate your service standards um So when you're dealing with that you've got to keep those operational costs low So you want to essentially say if it's a hundred dollars that the customer pays me And I have 50 going out the door to what I'm paying in service and supplies I've got 50 dollars left I need to look at all of the operational expenses and divide them by 50 If I cannot comfortably do that many services I need to lower those operational expenses And if you're in a situation Where you are running, um, let's say 10 000 a month in revenue And you cannot afford your operational expenses Don't say well when I get to 15 I can or when I get to 20 No, I want you to say Why can I not sustain at 10? Why is my operations not streamlined enough? Why do I need these cars this office this VA this ops manager? I'm just thinking of all the different Sucks that I usually see the expense that happen in a cleaning industry But for most service industries, it's usually some type of a support staff Not the service provider right the support staffs or your VA your admin type people What is going on operationally that you need this many hands in the cookie jar? And I'd rather see you spend your time and energy and money In figuring out how to run efficiently because running efficiently and getting those operations streamlined Is that foundation that we talked about at the beginning? That's the foundation that you're building everything on And that's how we eliminate the need to try to throw money at these problems because we've got this solid base And in covid a lot of people Were forced to let go of support staff and a lot of the entrepreneurs had to step in And they stepped in and they're like, oh if I use If I sent I don't know if you guys are familiar like zaper like if I send a zap I just eliminated, you know 20 minutes at the VA did this or if I use this zapper You get in and you start streamlining and then what happens is You keep that foundation and when you do get to 100,000 You're going to be way more profitable Because you have these proper systems and infrastructure in place and if we come back to a place of always saying I'm not going to throw money at the problem. I'm going to figure out how to solve the problem I'm going to build that foundation because too often I see service providers with a really small piece of the pie You should be getting at least 20 percent as the owner Now I have certain entrepreneurs who say I will take 15 and I will throw an extra five Into ops because I want to be completely hands off Sarah she's talking about you Sarah you're on here. She's talking about you I don't want to do any of that stuff Like I'm a very passive owner In those situations I am on board with it because I do believe that time is our greatest resource So if that's the situation but usually what will end up happening As we talk a big game about how we're going to take less so we can invest in this team and they're going to run the company and then We're in there anyways, and now we're making a lot of money and we're sitting like I'm so true I want to tell you one thing Is um, we had an event. Oh, I don't know when were we in vegas tam uh into june I think yeah in june. Okay, so our strategic success groups went to vegas and one of the things that we did was actually one you were a A sponsor A sponsor at that event. Thank you for that again But one of the things that we did was the people that Were at the event. They also had to participate by presenting and I wanted to tell you that one of the things The reason I wanted to bring this up is when pam got up to present on what she did We were all blown away by the amount Yeah, not kidding by the size of her business and that she only had one person Doing any of the admin and it was her but she had so much Done in the way of automation and making things happen that it was just like Everybody else was like, I don't understand. How are you doing that with only you who's like automation? And she never looked really stressed out or anything. So that that piece really mattered I really liked how you mentioned, you know The zaps and how you can automate things so that it's not one person just grinding it out every or multiple people grinding out all of these Flex systems, you know, also that that's another thing that this industry is notorious for complexity making everything so freaking hard And I love that that you simplify everything and you're really big in this idea Guys this stuff is not easy Okay Running a business is not easy. The majority of us are women. So Let's be serious. There's a whole lot going on at home. Like we have other stuff going on and It is what it is. I think a man compartmentalizes They go to the office and whatever they're checked out like we're working and we're like, oh, did we pack morning snack? I don't remember, right? We go Just I do Like usually something big bad happens. I like just I think it was Monday I close friend of ours committed to a side and I was on a call like half hour later And I look pretty much exactly the same as I look right now. Yeah, it's not Because I know that is it's very much organized very very well. That's definitely one of their skills That's you're lucky that you have that that's When we're trying to do something that's already challenging Why on earth would you make it harder? So when we're complicating things, I think sometimes we build it up in our head that Well, it's got to be this complex Situation because that's the fans here. It's legit or man Legit. Yeah, good job service providers who charge Thousands of dollars and they're like, here's a google sheet. Like here's my intake form. It's a google sheet And I'm like, she really didn't overthink that like there are certain things that do not need to be a 20 point system That went to 50 different people and no no we can automate And if you cannot find an automation for a specific process you want in your business Maybe you need to re-evaluate the process. Maybe there's a That there's not a lot of that Repeat that didn't process If you can't find an automation for a process you want to do in your business Maybe the process is the problem and that's the reason why there's not an it's just not a smart way to do it And I think a lot of that can be us reinventing the wheel Right. We really don't want to do that. We wanted Who is the leader in the space first thing you should always do? Who's the leaders in the space? Who should I be listening to and take a little bit from this one? Take a little bit from that one. I'm not saying one person should dictate the way you do everything But get your bits and pieces do your research and we all Internalize things differently. We all have different like as a micro as you might be more productive in the morning And you might be more productive at night Absolutely Don't reinvent the wheel stay true to what you are and maybe at night is when you do this stuff So you really have to find what works for you but Throwing money at it is not going to be the solution because now you're working more than you ever have and you're broke So you're not happy. You're not in a good space And there are all kinds of stresses in life, but in my experience There's stress and then there's financial stress that is stress on a very very different level It's very isolating. I think you will pick up the phone and say i'm in a stressful time in my marriage I am a stressful time in my motherhood It is a little bit different to pick up the phone and saying i'm in a stressful time financially So we tend to get very isolated about it people don't talk about it. It's very faux pas Especially if you're an entrepreneur Because now it's not my job is going through stuff and i'm getting taken down with them It's I was steering the ship and I steered us wrong. So there's a lot of ego. There's a lot of issues with it And it's important just like you would worry about your regular health or your mental health We got to think about our financial well-being and when we get this shiny object syndrome And we're just swiping that card and spending spending spending and let me do this Let me do that take the time to set back and say Money isn't an option. Okay. I'm not going to pretend that's a solution I'm actually going to fix the problem and figure out how can I run things more streamlined because if you are not keeping 20% in your pocket You should go back to the drawing board and really dissect the daily operations of your service-based business All right. I'm gonna I'm gonna argue that a little tiny bit So just a little bit though Sometimes and this happens a lot with people that I work for work with They are looking to grow much faster And so they're willing to spend more money upfront take a smaller similar to sarah, you know, we talk about sarah They're willing to reduce their profit margin methodically and That would be I believe you are talking about investing Yes, exactly. And they'll invest that profit. So but they're doing it Physically that is scaling strategically making a conscious that I actually have a live training I think it's next week on investing versus just spending on your business So that is very different, right? So when we're investing in our business We are spending that money with the hopes that it is going to Make you money when you're hiring a va. You don't think that's going to make you money You're thinking I have to otherwise I'm going to be drowning over here with so many tasks to do So investing is very different and making a conscious decision to take a lower margin to invest in the business to scale faster All about that I'm talking about when you're just scaling so quickly you have lost control of it and you are throwing money at it Yes, you're making a strategic decision All for it. That's what I want you guys to be doing. Absolutely. All right. We have two things We got a question here for for pam from Diane and we'll get that first and then I have one more thing go ahead Pam. Okay. So Diane's asking what do you use for automation? And uh, let me think about this a second, but So all the estimates that come through I knew that me as one person could not take all the calls and return all the emails And come up with all of those solutions or all those estimates. So I actually got responsive bid for that And and that's huge so I can handle 169 estimates a month for example and not have to do it myself Um bamboo HR. I have them for all my Yeah, so that streamline things it reminds me of the the employee's birthdays and whatever else Time to get their um Oh the drivers their car insurance up to up to date or whatever For social media management, I'm using a foreign VA service called um one virtual solutions And they're based out of the Philippines. They're amazing with their graphics and they handle all my social media management So I don't have to lift a finger So um, and then I do have a hiring platform that I use would recruit and they've automated all of my um Applications and just I just have to show up for the interview So those are just a handful of the some of the things that I used to automate She has a ton of stuff Automated the gal is automating it. Um, and now you just signed up for you're signing up with denay I know And you also just signed up for make central make central. Yeah Yeah more more things to automate and to reduce the amount of time that you have to spend on things, right? Absolutely I know right there. Yeah, it's when you're able to spend like reduce the time on those sort of tasks Then you can get back to your zone of genius because an app can't do What is your zone of genius, right? They're not going to be able to mirror that But if an app can do it and somewhere someone has figured out how to literally make a robot do it Why would you spend your time doing it if it's something that literally an app can do Because we need to get back to strategizing and being able to have that bird's eye view so Many entrepreneurs cannot what is it see the see the trees through the forest? Whatever that's saying They're lacking that bird's eye view of let me, you know fly up here look down and see What are all the moving pieces? You know, we should be looking at our companies as a chess board and we need to be strategic in how we're moving them But I can't do that if i'm on the board Just trying to get through the next move like you're not getting this upper level view if you're stuck in the weeds Doing all of the things and just keep just trying to write checks to people so that they can start doing all the things Well, why don't we change the way we do the things? So we need a lots manpower to do it Right. All right. So I want to give a little bit of definition to this word strategic So it's a word that gets thrown around a lot And everybody's like, yeah, I know I am doing it strategically. I'm doing it because of this that the other So this is the definition that we use in strategic success is that you make the plan to do the thing Before you do the thing If you do the thing and then later you're like, yeah, but this is why that's not strategic strategic is make the plan Before you do and consider All of the things how much money is it going to cost? What is my return going to be? strategic is make the plan in advance Figure out all of the things and then take action On the plan if it makes sense and then this is another key piece for us in strategic success groups Check in with your freaking plan every week Check in check in check in Jim ron said famously for those of you that know who Jim ron was He used to say all the time is often. Do you weigh the baby? Baby you weigh the baby every day You don't have to weigh an 18 year old every day But you have to weigh the baby every day And the the the thinking there is if you are Launching a new strategic initiative. You have to check in all the time regularly Don't just say this one. I'm doing bam and then walk away and do something else. This is not strategic all right, I gotta I got a hammer on that because Strategy is my is my ballet work there and it drives me crazy when people are saying they're being strategic when I'm like Yeah, not so much Yes, right they're in the whirlwind and they're totally in the whirlwind and I'm like, oh stop saying you're being strategic when you're in the whirlwind All right, I'm off my soapbox for real this time. Dine. Although I have like 20 soapboxes, so I think if you guys are able to sit down and Really, I'll just tell you what I recommend and Obviously if you know, we've already highlighted the differences if you're going to be making an investment in your your business Obviously an investment is something that would be short term, right? We're not going to do this all the time But essentially for our service-based business. I'd like to see 55% max going out the door to fulfill the service. I'd like to see about 10% Going to marketing I'll tell you guys right now if you are one of those talented and gifted individuals That is able to have an organic marketing strategy go for it But I encourage you to think If I have that and I spent 10% what could happen, right? Just just ask yourself that but Some people you really just it's a machine. You you have enough deep roots with a bunch of different network groups You don't need to do it, but I'd like to see 10% into marketing and then 15% Everything else and then 20% is going to be your profit now those of you Who are taxed as an escort? Quick caveat with this We're going to take the percentage of your paycheck that your payroll company's paying you We're going to add that to the profits. You might be like, oh, my profit is only 15 Well, if you took a 5% paycheck, you're you're right at the 20, but that's really how I like things allocated Again, this is all going to be individualized, right? So you might say no, you don't need to spend 10% in marketing Okay, so This is where we're going to strategize, right? We're going to sit down and we're going to determine What are these buckets? We're putting 55% into Service fulfillment. We're putting 5% into whatever it is You're going to lay it out and then you are going to operate within those confines And this is where you have to be able to be in touch with what's going on financially because if you only have 20% to spend on something and you're looking to spend 25 Where's that 5 coming from? Because if you can't cut elsewhere, I'll tell you exactly where it's coming from you It's coming right out of your pocket. And now you're going to bring home Less money to your family less money to your personal situation And this is how that resentment these feelings of failure all the thing just starts brewing but you could have prevented that by Maybe even a situation where you could have said to the vendor. Hey, I really want to do this I want to spend this money. Can I separate it over a couple months? Can I get on a payment plan? There's all kinds of things that we can do If we are actually trying to do things smart and looking at them and not flying blind Too many people are completely flying blind because they're just not in touch with these numbers Okay, you hit another one of my soapboxes You're good. You're good. All right So I was recently at an event Foundations. Oh, I real quick before I get into my story here For those of you that are regular smart business moves watchers when dineas talking about service What what's the term you use service fulfillment? Yep. So cost of the moment Everything is what we call cogs on the show. Yeah, right. So that's that's what she means is cogs. All right so I was at an event and um at foundations and somebody was talking to us about their Their money their idle loan the ppp and they had spent half of their idle money and didn't know where it was Didn't know where they spent it Don't get sick. Don't get nauseous today But well, they're gonna oh you have to hand like there's a whole other component to that because the sba man If you have to hand those in in march Yeah So So the reason I'm bringing this up is When we're talking about knowing where your money is going and a lot of times it's even And what dinei keeps talking about is if you're having the problem at 10,000 You're going to have the problem at 100,000 This is what she's talking about that and you can dig yourself into bigger and bigger holes The problem is a lot bigger at 100,000 500,000. You want to have a million dollar company? Bigger bigger bigger. Yeah, I like that big trees fall hard. That's great. Um, let's see. I'm going to I see linda has a question for you See I I'm thinking she probably means diy. She does. Okay Um, I do that is profit perfect. So that is our course Um, usually people will start off doing it themselves and profit perfect gives you the foundation to do that It's got an entire tech tutorial library that I find it perfect I can give you the link. I can't I can't drop it. If you tell me where to find it I can go get the link and I can drop it. All right. Yep. I can Can you send it to me and chat? I know I'm wondering if I can send it in the I'm pulling it up right now I'm wondering if I can send it in the I don't know in the my people will post a comment But if you give me if you give it to me, I'll post it to all of the pages and all the groups Did it I worked there. I put it in the private chat You did. All right. That's really the approach for those of you who are like I want to get the money stuff under control, but I'm not quite ready to outsource This would be a great fit and those of you who are ready to outsource It's a good fit if you just want to Understand how it all works. So I'm building a house right now. I Literally I'm not building it myself, but I have watched so much Information on it because I wanted to walk through and be like, okay Is that what it should look like at this phase? Like literally just thinking like, okay Was the plumbing supposed to go before the electrical did he do that backward? Like I I don't want somebody to just yes me to that And did I want to get a construction license? No, but I wanted to know what was going on because they could be Beating me a whole lot of fluff. So I always think that you should just My educate yourself enough to hold a conversation and know what's going on So if you're just looking for financial literacy, this is totally going to cover the basis We get into everything LLC s corp how to pay yourself how to say all the things And it also has the plus of if you want to implement yourself an entire tech tutorial library of quickbooks online Yes, Kelly loves Who is Kelly tell us who Kelly is Kelly is one of my absolute business bestie. So she is actually local to me. Um Literally, I would say We're in Delaware. Oh Delaware. Okay. Yeah Delaware And she she's cleaning company. She's a freaking Howard house Really really impressive and she's another one, you know a mom who was like I need flexibility Like I can't I can't do this nine to five type stuff and then Her story what is I'll just share this really quickly She built a very successful cleaning company and she was doing all the things and she was like, uh, uh I got into this because I wanted flexibility with my kids. So she sold it. She was like, I'm out I'm not doing it. And then she took the time to learn Automations all that and she re a brand new one started up Now, I mean, she's one of our best success stories. She has that stuff Lock because I love that Kelly we're gonna have to get you on smart business moves to tell you One she would be a good one that's on my show December 1st. I think December 1st. All right. We'll have to all right. So where are we gonna find your show? Don't I do live content every wednesday This week today. We did how to talk to your partner about money like your significant other not like your business partner We always do some type of financial training And they are getting streamed into our youtube channel, which is the profit factor They also into our private facebook group, which is also the profit factor And then we also pull the audio and put it on the apple podcast Which is also called the profit factor Basically everything's called the profit Nice the profit factor. It's nice and easy there. Yeah profit factor. All right youtube the profit factor You guys just check it out And the facebook group that's where all this stuff is and we do live training each week on wednesdays All right. And what time on wednesdays? 1 p.m. Today. I pushed it to two because build in the house and we had an electrical walkthrough and it ran way over and next to eastern Right 1 p.m. Eastern standard time normally one. Okay, so 10 o'clock pacific y'all. We have time zone people 11 o'clock mountain 12 o'clock central and one o'clock eastern. Oh, you're good. See I could never I can That what you just did I have to do it every single day. So I'm getting really really good at it. All right. Well any last things that you really want people to know Diney to make sure that they can be successful as they scale we've got four minutes here Yeah, I want them to really know that you are in A very profitable industry as service providers, right? There is margin there Um, this is not industry some industries. I'm like, it's a little challenging, right? This is not one of them Don't over complicate it You have to be very careful with every penny you spend and I strongly encourage you to Build a budget, right? We're going to decide what your percentages are going to be and then you're going to stick to it So if you decide you're spending 15 on ops and that actually translates To $5,000 a month to operate your business. I probably wouldn't hire an ops manager and pay her 50 grand a year Because you have to make sure that not only do you set a budget, but you stick to it and that's Accountability Coming back to it. I think there's too many service providers who are It's just entrepreneurial poverty and they're exhausted and they're crying on the phone with me and they're so stressed out And if you guys take anything away from today, I want you to know like it doesn't have to be like that It does not have to be like that There is money on the table. We just got to rearrange the way you guys have it going out the door. It's coming in I know that entrepreneurial spirit where hustlers we can get those bookings But once the money comes in the door, we got to be smart about how we spend it All right, so dine I like what you just said if we have people That we know are struggling financially And they're afraid to call anybody because they don't want to tell like you were saying right They don't want to talk about it and some of our people are ostriches They don't want to tell anybody about it because Talking about it will make it real real. So it's it's scary Do you are you able to give them specific advice on what they should be doing in the next month to Get themselves in a better spot or is it more like? All right, here's the num here's where you having problems. You're spending too much in In operations you have to reduce that by five percent or do you tell them specifically like the very first thing I want you guys to do if you are someone who's sitting here saying i'm not comfortable reaching out to the day I'm like embarrassed whatever your situation is I want you to pull the last three months of your bank statements And I want you to sit down with a glass of wine and a highlighter and I want you to go through every single Transaction and that means you're going to have to go to all the places right now if you've got eight bank accounts You're going to have a whole lot of statements, which is also going to be another wake-up call for you to simplify Right. I want you to go through every transaction First thing we're going to do is say how much is it costing me to actually fulfill the service? What is that cost of goods? It's going to be the first thing you guys calculate if you are over 55% You need help. Okay. We got to fix it. You got to go back Going on there The next thing I want you to do Is I want you to look at all of your recurring charges So that might be any software anything that you guys have that you know you're on the line for The reason why I like to start there is because I can't tell you how many times people go I thought that was a free trial and I didn't realize they're still Charging me So we're going to go through we're going to look at all of the recurring charges Of where you are spending your money. You're also going to then look at what are the one-offs So they're not recurring, but hey, I went to staples. I spent 350. That's not something I'm going to do all the time Well, what did you get think behind it? Look at all those one-offs re-evaluate them and start creating budgets Here's how much I can do operationally each month and if I need a one-off thing something I don't usually do I now know I don't max I spend no more than 250 You know a week on miscellaneous That's how I would start you got to print those bank statements and see what the heck is going on All right, so dine I'm going to put you on the spot here real quick But next month we're talking all about budgeting So is it possible to maybe get you on next month to talk about budgeting? Yeah, either a monday or a wednesday. I'll hit you out Which one Wednesday because I'm efficient guys and I already have to do my hair on wednesday So we're gonna stay efficient and we're gonna do wednesday Sounds great. I'm gonna hit you up with wednesday dates that I have open And I'm gonna get you on for budgeting. I think it's gonna be amazing All right for everybody that is afraid you're afraid to call you're afraid to do the thing Dine just told you the first three things to do But even if that is too scary then what i'm gonna tell you is just called in a you see how easy she is to talk to You see that she's Talked to lots of people and at least in vat of a spot as you're in at least as vat of a spot You will not shock me. I promise you you want shocker You will be able to get help and you can be done with this feeling I know it's scary, but get over it and just be done with it. All right We are up for today. We're a little bit over. Sorry about that y'all just a couple of minutes Hope it was worthwhile. Thank you all and we'll see you next week on monday Bye