 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I am with Liz Trotter and our guest today is Megan Likes and this is smart business moves It feels like we haven't done this like in forever. I think it's been a year Tom. Oh Yeah, wow last year this time Wow, it's like an annual thing. It's like the holidays. It's the holiday. Let's get together with Megan and well like I wonder if it's because of our event Because we did it at the same time last year. So that makes sense, right? that Yeah, I Love that Liz calls it our event. This is Liz's event that I hijacked last year and now it's become our event And I love that so much. Well, and next year it's gonna be all three of our event, right? So Tom just said hey Include me and we're like, oh, all right Yeah, you guys do events about all kinds of stuff like culture and you know The happiness event you're doing in January. Yeah, so what do I know about happiness? But I think What is Tom know about happiness what are you saying is he's gonna be there he's gonna be there as a participant You're doing better in the last year though Tom with your happiness factor there. I'm getting soft Yeah, you're doing Megan talk about our event a little bit Okay, yeah, let's talk about it. So Liz I met Liz I met you when I meet you I met you like five years or four years ago at a QTS conference You were doing a fun training for Jeff and Oh, yeah, yeah, and I love your workshop style, right like you believe in getting stuff done It's not teaching. It's not inspirational. Well, maybe it is But it's more like let's build it together while we're in this room and get it out And so last year we had a couple of mutual clients that were doing this goal setting with you and I was like Hey, I just started building these goal-setting tools Can I can I come and so it was nearby and I came and I hijacked an hour and we did a budget workshop And I feel like this interplay between hey, it's 2024 and I want to do 10 million dollars and then like oh shit How do I actually do 10 million dollars is a fun interplay that we've been building off of so Same thing happened this year. I wanted to do something you were doing something So we decided to do it together December 7th through 9th here in northern California again, it's super easy commute for me, which I love And we got we were doing it two separate workshops But they're stacked and coordinated so that they kind of build on each other and it's over the course of three days And so I feel like I'm starting which is maybe not our smartest move next time. Did you see what I did their smartest move? Next time I feel like I should probably go at the end I don't know. I'm going to let Tom and Liz sort out who goes first between the two of them next year But the idea is we we set a big harry audacious goal I'll let you talk about the goal setting go ahead Liz and then All right, so So Where are you doing that though? And I know people are like wondering well How in the heck can I sign up because you might book this thing out before you through explaining? I dropped the url in chat. You just go to corporate builders.com Bang you're right on the landing page so you can sign up as Liz gives you the details Cool Thanks, Tom. All right, so The thing about the goal setting is I think one of the big mistakes that people make is they Think of it too small like Megan said and you know you need to be thinking bigger If you are thinking someday, I want to be a 10 million dollar company. You can't have it. It's like Yeah, I want to be a 10 million dollar company, but you know next year. I hope I can get you know 15 growth That that's not the way it happens. You've got to put a lot more effort and time and thought into actually Setting down The goal what you're going to do how you're going to get there and you kind of have to step it out How you're going to make it happen and think in a different way A lot of times people put, you know Three four hours in there like okay. I got my plan That you don't have a plan you had an idea that you were thinking about and you have a dream next year Yeah, and next year you're going to do the same thing you did this year Uh, you know, how often do we see that you have the exact same? And Increase in what you're doing that you had last year you didn't change anything you didn't do anything different Really, you had the organic growth that you were going to have regardless no matter what you did so the idea here is set some big harry audacious goals and Set them in all areas of your life You be a better person so that you can handle a bigger business and you can do bigger and better things I love that you do it in a group setting too, right? I feel like sometimes I sit in a room I have a limiting belief where I'm like, oh I and it's so funny, but everybody does this they're like I did this much this year So I'm just going to add to it and that's how much I'm going to do next year And then that's your own like mistakes repeating themselves as like you're telling yourself this internal dialogue What I noticed is when you get in a room with somebody like lis Or me or tom will challenge you be like Think bigger come on We're gonna do the same thing like you can do so much more and I like kind of starting that at a five-year mark So it's way easier to be like I can do 25 million in five years than being like I could do 10 million next year Right like having that discussion and I'm using 2 million because I'm trying to challenge your thinking If you are a cleaning business owner, you're like, I'm still shooting for that first million. I'm like dream bigger girl guy Whatever tom. I just cut you off. Go ahead. You're you're you're you're you're gold so Liz you mentioned that it's important to do that in like All facets of your life not just your business. So I know the Event that you guys are hosting december 7 and 9 in Auburn, california that you can sign up by going to Corporatebuilders.com you're definitely going to be doing goal setting in the business But are you guys going to be like setting personal goals and another goals as well? Yeah, we sure are um going to be setting some some Get kind of trying to get real real with who you are and what you really want Uh, how many times tom you and I have seen this we saw this so many times in foundations every year I think almost people say yeah, I just want to get to that million dollar mark Or I just want to get to but they don't really have any concept of what they're even talking about That's just a thing that they're hoping They're they're hoping Maybe they'll get lucky Yeah, and yeah more more luck thing right if that's what's going to happen to you, uh, then okay fine But you have to make some of these big things happen And you can't keep I like what you said too You can't keep doing the same thing that you've been doing all along It's not going to happen and it's not just That you say a different number. It's not enough to say, you know, okay Well, then I'm going to do 10 million you got to have a plan around that too. You can't just Want it you can't just hope for it can't just dream for it You've got to actually put the plans in place and you have to think differently So that starts a little bit with who you are and what how you're going to be Who you're going to be in your life how you're going to think a little bit different Hey, hey, I'm in the house. Haven't seen you in a while. Hello either Oh Oh fun like our names. Tyler. Did you get it the the yeah two and the three? Yeah Tyler's and a fellow spreadsheet nerd Tom and Liz. He's like he's a machine to the spreadsheets I said a personal weight loss goal last year. So I actually was a participant last year I sat through the whole Two days with Liz and I said all my personal goals and then I found an accountability buddy in that room so Dran Williams was helping me motivate and I am hitting my target weight loss goal and And it felt good to kind of keep up that like calling a shot And I don't know Liz made us do a clunky wheel and my wheel was way out of whack But I'm hoping this year when I do it it's a little less out of whack It was super lumpy in terms of like, you know, sometimes you're killing it in business But you know, maybe your health's not doing great or maybe your family life's not great or maybe, you know Your personal, I don't know there there was a wheel. She'll explain it better But what I like is it wasn't just a two-day thing Like this is not just a set it and forget it. This is like, let's build an action plan Let's build an accountability and let's go crush our goals I I like to say now when I set a goal It's super rare for me to miss it because it's a smart goal It's foolproof and I am constantly iterating and tweaking so that I I hit those goals I'm very competitive with myself goals work well for me Keep going toward that same thing. Keep keep thinking about it. How many times do you see Tom? You see it and Meg and I know you see it in your business too Where you ask people so what are you working on this week and they don't even know they don't remember They're just like, oh, I I don't know. I'm gonna be You're not working toward your goal, right? You're not doing your thing. Hey Deni Hi Deni Yeah, I love it. And then we uh, so Liz had a monster spreadsheet last year and not in an intimidating way like Let's do this thought exercise and then it's going to just populate and we're going to learn how to use that tool And so I got inspired and I started building a pretty epic monster spreadsheet of my own with the budget So once we set our goal, let's say it's a financial goal of 1 million or 10 million dollars Then we can take like some some specific numbers that we have from tools like made central Or quick books online, right? So let's take some numbers that we have that we already know of where we stand today right now And let's forecast out like let's call our shot So I like to say in the budget part is you should know exactly how much money is going to be in your bank account Next december 31st And that's because you know exactly how much net profitability you're going to tolerate in your business You know exactly what your owner's compensation is going to be next year before the year starts And you know how to pull your levers make your tweaks to your revenue and to your you know Your lead flow and to your labor efficiency so that you can actually achieve those goals So when I say Budgeting it really is goal setting in a way that's action numbers with numbers. It's very very actionable Number number goal setting. Yeah, like how you're going to make those numbers move and tom you talk about that In terms of going to make those green numbers go up We're going to make those red numbers go down Some numbers are supposed to be growing some are supposed to be shrinking And so Okay, I'll I'm super excited. What is what is this? What is this? Okay. This is the core kpi's that We use it made central you use these in in your accountability groups, don't you lose? Yeah, we sure do we use these in the circles to help build and we'll be using these in Goal setting as well to build bigger Bigger goals and do bigger things Zoom in for us because you're killing me I'm on a little And you can plug them into hey tom. Can you like um zoom in like maybe on just the top row or on the left because I can but barely Okay So You know we explain what all these are but this is like this isn't made central But there's nothing magic about these numbers if you're using some other soft where you can calculate these yourself All you needs the handy dandy made central 2024 kpi core kpi calendar, which you'll get at the goal setting workshop Every month Every month there's a core kpi and we explain how to calculate it and how to use it And plus we're doing workshops throughout the year on these core kpis And we've got them like at the calendar Again, you don't have to be in made central to do this these core kpi's Are kind of universal in fact if you're listening to this and you don't use made central You have an obligation to be tracking these and it's an incentive to move to a program like made central where they're going to track them for you Because this is how we this is how we we achieve our goals. We don't just throw out in the universe I think I'd like to retire with seven million dollars into the bank That's something that liz and I did last year. We're like, how much do you need to retire yourself, right? No, you say Okay, so to have seven million dollars in the bank I've got to grow a cleaning business to be at x dollars and then to do that I need this many recurring clients and to get there. I need This many leads per week and this many um One-time cleans per week and this many cleaners like it's just math The path to seven million happens to be my retirement number just for the record for those I wonder where that came from that is the cash number for megan to run away into the into whatever it is that the next phase is and And it's just a math path like okay, and then you can decide well do I like doing These things to get to that number of these things to get to that So they all have to be done. I've got to do these things. I can't just hope that'll happen I can't just you know work every day work another hour every day I can't just like okay. I'm gonna start working Saturdays and that'll make it happen. It's not the way it happens, right? It's and it's really not about This is the other piece that's kind of tricky. It's also not Just about and this is gonna fly in the face of what a lot of you um Have heard and what you believe and what you think it's not it's not just about Learning something new Yeah, it's not that you can learn all of the things you can hear it all you can sit in on every class It's not that it's doing the things that move the letters. It's not hearing and learning It's doing no granted. You gotta learn a few new things sometimes But then you have to do the things I had a budget call today. I'm like in full blown budget mode I feel like everything is around a spreadsheet a budget or a meeting presenting a budget or Or like editing a budget and I had a budget call today for an eight million dollar company And uh at the end she was like, you know Oh, also, did you hear that at the end eight million dollar company in an hour budget? I mean, this is not like pulling teeth forever and ever and ever and she goes, you know, this is all just basic stuff And I was like, it's too good simple. It's like if you look at these kpis, how much is your average cleaning? How much do you want to make? How many hours is that cleaning going to take? You know, like it's just how many people do you have to hire to do that cleaning? I mean you you mentioned you mentioned megan that you've set some personal goals a year ago like like weight loss goals It really isn't complicated. You just got to do it, right? Well, I did need I did need somebody in that room to recommend a scale And this scale is terrifying because it actually reports my weight to the person that was my accountability buddy So you can't like cheat the scale or hide from the scale There are some like hacks, but I kind of feel like that's what quickbooks is or that's what made central is You can't just say I'm going to get two new recurring clients a week and then you know hide away from that You've got to actually be checking on am I getting to just like I want to lose a pound a week Like that's that was my weight loss rate was a pound a week like nothing crazy But a pound a week It was a pound a month I was like wow No, no, you're right that was not right But still I wanted to be lighter now than I was a year ago and I am so Well, and that actually is where the strategic success circles come in and what I see is Over and over and over again people are plugged in. They're doing the things. They're having the accountability They're making moves, but it's hard And that accountability is hard And so they'll check out and they'll lose ground And then they're like, I gotta do it again Yes, you've got because you have to do the things period bottom line It's not happening if you don't do the things. Hey, Megan. What do you have in your hair? They look like icicles. Oh, I went I spent a month in africa this year Completely unplugged and these are my african braids that I still now I can see them Like I have every year just about no, I'd say every year I do at least a month away of the business and life and you know, um, sometimes a little bit more this year It was just four weeks and uh, I when I come home I have this thing called the chill like it's a chill effect We're like nothing really matters and you just I really love what I do for work But like all the small stuff that probably bothered me before I went on vacation for a month Like doesn't bother me and so usually I go to europe and so usually it's called a european chill But this time it was africa. So it's called the african chill, which fun fact when you go to developing country Yeah, the small stuff literally doesn't matter because you have like water that's not trying to kill you You have food that's not trying to kill you you have bugs that aren't trying to kill you like I I also go to africa a lot. So I've kind of used that anyway Uh, this is my reminder to not sweat the small stuff like whenever my african braids remind me of my african chill like You know Really just doesn't matter Uh, we got a roof over our head. We're freaking privileged and um, oh jerry isan are you guys friends with jerry? I don't know jerry I love him just because of that one line Yeah, he's right on the mark. Yeah, he just wrote this book Where did the profit go and jerry you need to make friends with tom and lis because jerry is chasing down Labor efficiency in the hvac and plumbing world and in hvac and plumbing they don't care about efficiency But jerry tom has a software company that is like all about efficiency and lis has a million programs all around efficiency Um, I like to say I learned everything I know about how to run a profitable business from From maidservice because you guys are only selling other people's times. You don't get to sell a 15 000 hvac unit to mark That revenue number. So jerry wrote this book. Where did the profit go? It's literally sitting on my desk very good book and he and I first speaking friends a couple years ago through tommy mellow When he called me and said can you talk me through how I calculate labor waste? And I was like, I'm sorry. What? I'd never heard anybody ever talk about labor waste as a p&l item And it's basically like when we're not running at capacity or when we're not being efficient So jerry i'm so glad you popped in because tom and you think exactly the same and I will make an introduction to you guys We have a metric we have a metric it made central called npt non productive time So we measure that time on the clock that no general no revenues being generated But do you put a dollar amount to it? I can't find your book Do you put a dollar amount to it? We measure it in time, but we could very easily put a dollar amount to it I think that's a fun fact that jerry showed me was like if you think of a top producer like if we were to like Rank our staff in any industry our a players and our c players in terms of efficiency And you put a dollar amount to that like tommy mellow says it's a million dollar swing in one technician If you have now, I know okay, I know we're talking to main service owners And you're like what I can barely do a million dollars with my you know 15 technicians or whatever but um If you think about the dollar amount of waste from inefficiency There's another great book that doesn't wait. I need I need his book first. Where did the profit go? Yeah, it's on Amazon It keeps popping up. Where did the money go? I'm trying to order it right now. Well, I also love that book I've got it right here. Off it go The profit go Money goes also really good ellen should be on the show. She's fantastic. Um, okay. Oh, I wish it was honorable Well, it's new it just came out like in August. I see that. Yeah, it's like, okay All right, and then I got to see jerry. We've got you. Thanks jerry. Thanks for coming We'd love to have you on smart business moves if you um could Send an email to tom steward at madecentral.com and um, we'll make that happen if if uh, you'd be so gracious to join us Yeah, totally. And then it reminds me of the two second lean. We're going down a total tangent, but have you guys read this? We all love books. Um, I have not read this how to grow people and build a lean culture Okay, I also will love it But it will break your brain once you read it. You can't unread it Okay I'm gonna love that. I do love that. Well, thanks jerry for dropping the link. Oh nice okay You got that tom too. Yep All right, that was we had tyler and jerry. What a good and a dineat and amy. What a good audience Love it All right, so I was hoping could we do like just a super back of the envelope budget Together we do that. Let's do it Do it, um, I I feel like with a couple of numbers that are listeners who use madecentral could just pull directly from madecentral Uh, hang on. Let me I was I wasn't planning on doing this, but I realized we're 20 minutes in and we're gonna do it We're gonna build a spreadsheet, right? Tom loves that What what does he love building spreadsheets right in front of your eyes? Oh We did a whole bunch of those and um cleaning business today. We call them kpi videos and we just start off with a with a blank spreadsheet and Build a calculator do something really awesome on the fly. Well, I think you're a lot braver than me I don't think I want to do that. Oh come on Don't think I really want to do that on the fly, but let's do Let's do that. I'm gonna hide this her. Um, the reason why she doesn't want to do that tom is her spreadsheets tend to be very um Elabor, it's not the right word. Um, but there's a lot of information there So she's not thinking of just a quick calculator for four numbers We have one. I'll show how do I do this? Can I share? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely present what I've never done You go down and there's a I'm gonna stop sharing my screen that that it really matters, but Um, if you go down to the bottom, there's a tray that says present. I think I did it And There it is you see it Yep Okay, so now we have a we have a bit of a vocabulary problem here So you guys are gonna help to help me translate because I've been in a different world But I'm gonna zoom in here And um, I'm gonna go over here to the right and I'm gonna say actually I'm gonna start here I'm gonna say that the first thing I like people to do is like figure out What they did in 2022 and what are they gonna do in 2023? So just from a revenue standpoint, you know, what did you do and that will help us predict What is our current growth rate? So lis I loved how you talked about at the beginning you're like, you know Most of us just recreate what we did last year. So kind of figuring out how do we make it a different thing So if you are following along you can write down Actually, we can probably share I don't know if we can share this whole thing, but you can write down What did you do last year? What did you do this year and figure out your growth rate? Then to figure out your budget like these are the main drivers. So Tom these look probably a lot like what you have in your calendar. Don't they your average cleaning Have your average bill, right? Yeah Average bill rates. So how much you're charging for other people's time? How how much of their day are they going to be making you money? So like in california, I say, you know, we take an uh an hour for lunch And we've got drive time of 30 minutes each way. So we lose two hours out of our eight hours during our day Just driving around Um or taking a break. So we're at 80 efficiency um How many hours so like if you have part-time staff, this might be different or if you live Somewhere where it's really cold. It might be different But typically 40 hours in a week times 52 weeks in a year. You've got 2080 hours available And then what about these do these make sense to you guys? Or do you say something different in the main central world? For me conversion rate means like number of estimates converted into an invoice We say close rate Yeah, right lead to sail quote to sail. Yeah, and then the other one for me means like Uh, I see so many people saying I need more leads and I'm like, no, you don't you just need to capture your leads better So booking rate to mean means like from lead to estimate So lead to quote quote to sail. Yeah, exactly. So this is lead to quote and this is quote to sail. Yeah We track those we track those metrics It yeah, and I think every business when we say keeping it simple You have to know these numbers and you can make them better Target net profit percentage. So people ask me all the time. What's a good profit percentage, Megan? So can I ask you guys? What's a good profit percentage? So we I'm good is different than Acceptable and you know, what do you what are you willing to deal with? Uh, so we we tell people benchmark at at least 20 percent Um, if you're a bigger company, you might be willing to sacrifice or Invest a couple of percent into more growth Um, you know, it sort of depends on what you're doing if you're comfortable where you are Then hopefully you're seeing at least 20 percent But we know companies that are sitting at 15 and they're pumping an extra 5 percent into marketing And they're they're planning on getting big and they're they're blowing up some some numbers doing that So I remember one year at issa at a round table I got in a fight with some very sophisticated made owners because I realized nobody was calculating net profit percentage the same So I think I guess before we ask that like this is after you've paid yourself for the work you're doing in the company Um, so that's what I mean by net profit percentage I think a lot of people get confused based on their entity structure and like based on what their account tells them They should pay themselves But I'm like if you had to replace yourself in the business your net profit is what You made after you paid yourself what you would have paid somebody else So sometimes we're starting with like a negative net profit And so you kind of have to know where am I today in order to figure out where you want to go But I say if you ever do a workshop with me, you're not allowed to put a single digit net profit percentage down as a target So I love that list said default 20 percent, right and acceptable 15 percent I think historically we've said healthy is 10 to 20 But I'm seeing monster companies like 200 million dollar companies pulling in 25 28 percent net profit. So crazy Yeah, awesome crazy In the spirit of you know, we're jerry's coming from though We're companies are getting more sophisticated, you know, they've got tools where they can see where they can be increasing bill rates on a job by job basis and Cutting the payroll to revenue down a point or two and uh, you know a two percent rate increase and uh Three percent reduction and payroll to revenue If you're running, you know as low as like a 10 profit margin, which is is kind of thin for most You know mature companies you can increase that 50 percent just by doing those two things because that goes right to the bottom line So fast. Yep. And what do we see? What do we see all the time we see people Digging into instead of doing those two things that makes such a huge impact We see them looking at, um Tightening up their inventory We're gonna get a better deal on window cleaner. Yeah In their bottles, they're checking out their bottles I think I'm gonna like stop accepting credit cards and start doing paper checks and like My favorite expression is you are literally walking stepping over dollars to pick up pennies You're like, I'm just gonna skip that hundred dollar bill because I have 10 cents over here I'm gonna go save like I I talk a lot about energy management like as owners as founders like we don't have that much energy to go Build blow up although I seem to do that all the time blow up your existing business model and put it back together Like that takes a lot of energy. And so we have to be smart about this I like that if we could just focus on one of these numbers next year Like really really changing one of these numbers we can really make a huge difference in our company But let's get to the fund spreadsheet real quick. So this is a budget guys Do you see how stupid simple? Look at this huge budget. Look at this giant budget It's completely mind-blowing. Isn't that insane? We basically call our shot like I want my revenue to be whatever Uh What does Tyler say if a maid service company was looking to sell our exit, what would they experience in comparison to eva? Uh I'm gonna default to the people. He's looking for I guess he's looking for for for multiples Of your cash flow. It's a multiple of revenue. Usually right in maid service Uh It's usually like recast earnings. It's it's You know, you're you're you're not and you throw in depreciation and a few other things to to bump it up Sometimes owners salary depending Used to be somewhere around, you know, three times give or take if it's uh It could be as low as two could be high as four, but those numbers are higher I know that Derek Christian spends a lot of time in this and uh, he sees deals going through it multiples of five now So, um, it's a good time to sell your cleaning business if you're If you're thinking about doing it Okay, Tyler's going to come back with a spreadsheet to help us figure out by Profit percentage by this much we're going to increase our getting meg into a seven million dollar nest egg faster If you tie it all together, that's I mean you take that, you know, three percent Price increase and two percent improvement and payroll to revenue And then turn around and look to sell your company and you've just increased the value or tremendous amount Yeah, you really have yeah, I mean, yeah, like what is that? It's like 10x Yeah, I could you know, it could be I mean, it's you know, 50 percent, you know, improvement on the bottom line times five that's 250 Money it's good money. That's what that is Well, so here's here's the here's this the quick and dirty budget guys and I did this in nashville recently It was just completely mind blowing because I was with 50 sophisticated business owners all doing seven and eight figures all running very profitable businesses and this Was like mind blowing to them and I was like really this is how my brain works The idea is you choose like how much revenue do I want? What's my target cost of goods sold? No, this is a this is a window cleaning company So if we're in maid service, we'd probably do something like 50 percent Does that sound better? We loaded I guess it would be Yeah, yeah 50 percent then you say like no more than 54 megan Yeah, no more than 54 if it's danger danger if it's more than 54 And then you say like this is how much I want to benefit like me as the owner I don't care if this is wage income or distributions. I I literally don't care how you get your money You're gonna go home and tell your spouse. We are making this much next year come hella high water This is what we can count on to feed our family and this is all we're gonna get we're not gonna rob the piggy bank We're not gonna like dip into the business account. We're not gonna like pay for a family disney vacation from business money No, our owner pay is gonna be this much. So whatever that amount is for you And then what what's our marketing gonna be? So this one was like a bit of a smarter one So it came from another tab that I hid but you can choose like if you want to be spending 5 10 15 percent I'm a huge fan of brand recognition. So I've never spent more than 5 percent likes accounting or marketing budgets Like less than 1 percent. It's called megan's travel fund but I really do work when I'm traveling. I know you guys are crazy. I really am actually working. Um So you've choose your marketing amount and then you choose your net profit percentage So this is the last one you fill in And then you figure out I had a guy do this yesterday and he's like wait making my expenses are negative and I was like, well Guess what? That means you pinched yourself. That means you got to lower this one So if you don't want your expenses to be negative, maybe that means you've got to like, you know Lower your owner pay or maybe that means you got to lower your net profit percentage And you just start playing with it to see can I get this dialed in better, right? Can I get this figured out better? And that is a budget That's all you need to do and you can figure out that if you started the year with $10,000 in the bank And you can profit this much For 12 months out of the year then you're going to end the year with $225,000 in the bank I love it. Megan. You're like, I don't understand. It's so simple. Why is this confusing? We can make it way more complicated, right? You can actually build this out to be a monthly plan and you can project like once you're going to lose money and You can build out a marketing plan by week with lead flows and all that But that's not the point. The point is I'm just going to stay here for one more second You really need to know one two three four five six numbers to build a budget And then you go pay attention to your maid central and the drivers that help you achieve that budget I guess before I stop sharing I'm going to unhide that one tab because this one's kind of fun Because this is the game like if your average clean hang on let's make this a cleaning business average clean is like what 155 these days Yeah, probably hot 192 hundred. Yeah mark Yeah, slavery. What do you think per hour? Yeah, fully 65 So that's what you're paying per hour This is how much you're charging out your your charging at your bill right per hour 60 65 Okay, that's like 65. Yeah 80 same close For efficiency it can be. Yeah. Yeah clothes, right booking rate We're gonna just use that's close enough But then here you can go see like If we're if we're doing Uh, what are we doing 26 cleanings a year? And we have like 80 returning clients Then we only we only need 79 leads this year. We only need to spend $5,000 in ad spend this year Right, like yeah, this is not hard guys So then you're then you build a marking plan and you're like, okay How do I go find 79 leads and how do I make sure that I actually you know convert those into Quotes and then those quotes actually turn into sold And maybe 80 returnings high. Maybe it's more like 50 percent. I don't know what the turn rate is, but These calculators are just fun All night long Guys, this is my job now when I'm not traveling the world. I am playing with spreadsheets And I hope that that was like I wanted to like give the listeners a small takeaway like don't Don't go sit If you want to go sit in a room for eight hours come to the budget workshop But you want to go sit in a room for 24 hours and build out a plan Come next week because we're not going to waste your time because that is just the tip of the iceberg What we're going to do is we're going to tie that into your quickbooks We're going to tie that into your main central. We're going to build on a weekly plan We're going to make sure that you are the best like leader in your company so that you can actually execute on this plan like there's a lot of things that we're going to do at that workshop, but um, so if I go to this workshop Well, I get a copy of that calculator a budgeting tool that you just shared with us That's the cheap one. You're going to get the fancy one. Oh, so, you know, I even got out You're gonna get something better than that Like like a million times better like I paid a full-time spreadsheet guy for the past year to build the smartest thing ever So that we can take your actual p&l and do the budget itself Like down to every expense line in less than 20 minutes. Okay It's insane. I'm so proud of it. Like I'm so excited He's getting worried it's gonna break but it's not it's not broken yet. So there's that Um, yeah, it's really cool because now we run 200 different quickbooks files through that budget tool And and then what I've done is for our likes accounting clients Uh, it's all automated so that like some people build the budget and never look at it again But we want to be actually tracking our actuals compared to what we said our budget It would be every single week, right? Not even every month every week. So I love that Yay, I do too. I absolutely love that I really looks like the neat needs to sign up for the workshop because She's missing out We do have a virtual option. So for all three days if you want to lock yourself in a room Yep, Amy live stream option And I think we've got dawn like we've got like a legit live stream option I was gonna half-ass it and make it just super Get out of the phone No No, we have a legit option. Yeah, absolutely Uh, it's super super exciting though Like if you could pull off coming to north of california The energy in the room when I was saying like being around liz and her like literally calling out me like That's too small try again like and she says it in the nicest way possible But you kind of need somebody to be like In your face just a little bit in the sweetest way And sometimes just a matter of are you sure is that Is that are you gonna be happy if you get that so so many times we just throw a number out there But really if we get to the end of the year and we have that number Are you gonna be like? Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I am so proud of myself. This is so Or are you gonna be like, oh Okay, I should have had a bigger goal If you're gonna have that you gotta set that today I gotta create that plan Last year was amazing. Oh, oh, Amy. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Yeah You can you can sign up you can you can sign up and do it Online and it's going to be better than than face timing off of megan's phone. It's going to be done professionally Yeah, yeah, it is. Oh, but i'm sorry Yeah, but don't worry, but denise last year's he had one of the biggest epiphanies last year. She just I she like had this complete light bulb moment where she realized like I've been thinking too small right like she was thinking like yeah, I can actually do this and And denise I remember when you left it was so contagious because she was just like buzzing like We're gonna go we're gonna go like let's go like she wanted to get out of the room to go like crush her goal, right? Yeah, I can't wait to hear how it worked for you denise because you were you've had it You've had an awesome year and gotten to see a little bit of the awesomeness She does she does love to do the stuff and she loves to Be at all events. I'm sad. She must be sad. I know she really has fomo if she can't come. I know it's Hard on her because she really does love to to do all of the things And she sent me a note because we did a virtual class together this year and she sent me No, she's like I have there's all this money in this profit account like for the first It's like working and I was like, yeah, sorry Denise. I hope that wasn't the secret But I was so proud of you because she does this stuff she's influenced That's the secret because she's telling everybody. She's just so Shocked she's like it's the first time I've ever had this much money. Like You know how close to the vest need is it's kind of hard to get anything out of her Yeah about like me or megan, right? Just so quiet about everything very quiet. Yeah What else uh, so Yeah, what else tell them what you got What have I got? um, I don't know did I Show off or explain with the core kpis He's loving the calendar. Yeah We've we've got you know, we've got a calendar here that And this is part of the deal you sign up for the budget workshop. You'll you'll get a complimentary made central 2024 core kpi calendar. It's true. But uh, I dropped a url in chat earlier. It's core kpi.madecentral.com and this is free You don't this is anybody can can can can play this and you can plug your core kpi's in and it'll Basically, uh, forecast what your revenue is going to be for the next 12 months Um, we'll tell you what your gross profit is your net and percentage and uh, you can play what if games I love what if games it's like monopoly money But it's actually your money and like you can play the game now and be like Did you see how I called I said 225 thousand dollars in that imaginary bank account next year? Like it's not going to be imaginary next year if you do this is doable It's doable and you and you gotta find a group that's going to hold you accountable And you can save this and you can print it out and you can come back next month and update it You can do I mean there's a lot of a lot of different games here, but uh, I might want to check that out And you wanted to know where it is in made central tong she needs a how-to Oh the uh the core kpi's uh, it's uh, bup bup bup It's in the menu Please hold amy We'll have it any minute now. Yeah I don't know what music to play. I'm like going through a couple soundtracks in my head Under company down here core kpi's it's uh, we still consider it and bay it up, but um That's how you get to it And it's populating with your numbers and then you're getting to watch it play out as you like like I hope you guys heard me say just choose one number to focus on for this next week or next quarter, right? If it's your average cleaning If it's your average number of quotes like just choose a number and it's a game against yourself and Get that number back to You know A number you like to the number you're planning for Okay, where it's where you think it should be Right and start taking actions on that number. So here's here's another mistake. I'm glad you said that megan Here's another mistake that I see people doing they instead of trying to Find the number that's the problem or the biggest problem or that can make the biggest impact Instead they want to do what they want to do But I really or they want to go on emotion. Yeah, but I really need a new training program But you have a training program that's already working it. Are you Why is that what you're focusing on? Well, because I feel like we're having I feel like Not I know because I'm looking at my numbers. I feel like we're having a lot of quality issues Let's talk again about how is that impacting your numbers and people get stuck Model you can kind of say, okay. Well, great. I'm going to cut my cleaning supplies in half Which if you measure it is less than two percent of your overall revenue anyway, so Great, you know, I've knocked one percent off and you can get that back three times over by just doing a reasonable rate increase. So But it's easier to shop for cheaper window cleaner than it is to Do a rate increase or people are afraid of that. Nobody wants to increase rates. Nobody really wants to Manage their labor to to lower your your cost to get sold. It's easier to shop for cheaper window cleaner And I think it feels more intimidating to work on those other things People get stuck With like but I don't know how to make that number go up. I know how to impact my expenses I just buy cheaper stuff. I'll buy less. I'll just They feel like they know how to do that something. They've been doing their whole lives long, right? They've been budgeting how to buy or not buy stuff This may be a me. I had my first Okay, so I felt like I've been just enjoying my Tuesday mornings. Jeff and I started doing Yoga we used to I used to fight club every Tuesday morning Now Jeff and I do yoga on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings And I like have to say Amy. I haven't missed it that much and then today I was on a call and they're like, oh, you have a podcast I can't wait to listen and I was like No, I don't have a podcast anymore and then Amy here you are. I I miss you too like All right, smart business moves. I just got to come on more often than once a year Maybe we should start doing this five days a week again less Yeah, we're not doing that They started still doing this every day. Are you they're like no not anymore But you know, it's funny, you know, it's been how many years since we were doing it every day, ton We started in March of 2020 when COVID first was a thing and yeah, and we did it for a year We did it every day for a year and when we are Like when we're at convention wherever we're around people How many people are still telling us? You got me through COVID like I look forward to that smart business moves every day I really needed it and it was it was tough times for people. So even though at the time People thought we were insane Doing this every single day We see Amy. You totally did Yeah The the the secret is it got us through COVID too because we were as Uptight and confused and as frayed as everyone else and it was cathartic Yeah We started in April of 2020. It was the same idea And yeah, Amy, I love that. She says they're so great to have smart folks listen to while getting ready in the morning Like and and she listens to you guys on Thursdays. I just think that's so fun Nice. Thanks, Amy for listening. You were saying something right before we got distracted by that fight club comment uh Geez and lost it. We got distracted shocker We stay I would remind you but I probably wasn't paying attention. So um Tom's doing a spreadsheet over there. Um, I love it. I love it. Um, I've lost it Not that important. Oh, well, it'll come back. It'll come back later when it's meant to be Yeah, it will it will but I think uh, the takeaway is I I haven't given up on 2023 yet. Um, I'm still focused on november of 2023 I am gonna finish this november, you know, it's a we're on our second uh Record breaking month in a row. We've had five record rating months this year and we're just gonna close this month super strong And we're not gonna phone it in for december like we're gonna finish 2023 I think some people get like a little nervous But you can't wait until january to start planning for 2024. Like if you wait till january You don't have your marketing plan in place. Uh, you don't have your ads been in january You miss january. So it's kind of a weird time But when I say budget season, I mean it like you've got to be Finishing every single week the five weeks left in this year finishing them as strong as you can While getting you know closing out this year as best you can but also making big plans starting january one And I I like the timing of our workshops And if you if you don't have it in you to sign up for this workshop this year Then put it in your budget for next year. That's the fun thing about a budget like if you need a new Vehicle put it in your budget if you need a new computer put it in your budget You want to like change your business? Didn't you have a january workshop there tom? Yeah, we do we have a january workshop that is in phoenix I wasn't going to pitch this because I didn't want to You need to sign up for the event in december before Doing this but this is in 2024 guys. So if you want to go you just put it in the budget and I will tell you What happens? I am a cheapskate. I am super cheap people find that shocking because it says meg likes money But I like to keep my money. I like to give away my money I don't like to spend my money and when I do a budget it gives me permission to spend So if I said hey, I really need to go to mace central academy next year and how much is the workshop? What's the investment for that? First person 649 second person 499 it's it's a three day workshop now It used to be two but we've made it three because we threw in more workshops more hands-on activities through that so we needed a third day and Is basically all about how to use these core kpis to Improve the outcomes in your business What to what to do to make the green numbers get big and to make the red numbers get small So if you come to that you can get a second one of these to go along with the one you get when you go to the budgeting event In uh california in december, but here's the deal. Here's the mindset shift that I hear happen Okay, I'm going to invest $649 into my company. I'm going to invest three days of my time I'm going to invest airfare to phoenix arizona four nights of a hotel So I show up well rested and don't have to race out of air and I get to network I'm going to make that investment and that investment every time I make an investment I'm thinking what is my ROI going to be on the investment? Well, if I'm using made central better or if I'm able to increase my average to get just a little bit more If I'm able to increase my labor efficiency just a little bit more or if we do the Tyler math And I'm able to like 10x the value of my company to achieve my retirement goals Then yeah, I want to make that investment check Okay, now where's it going to be my cash flow because we're not going to do the the thing that lis said which is like I deserve to go hang out with tom and lis and phoenix. No bullshit You don't deserve that like you can turn it and you can plan for it And then once you plan for it I have no guilt once I go when I board that airplane I'm like it was on the plan I budgeted for it when I need the new laptop Which guess what I need a new laptop every single freaking year and a new phone too because I'm hard on them I'm like, well, it was in the budget like I planned for it. It didn't come away from my net profit It didn't come away from my ebita. So Yeah, that's how I feel about a budget is it gives me permission to spend within reason and with intention I like the with intention Comment because I I think that's a huge piece of it. It's I intended to do that It it was the plan It makes sense when I'm intending to do that now sometimes do your intentions go awry sometimes, right? but you can tweak and twist and Make make make some shifts to what you're doing. You still have your budget. You can still use it And if you come to the budget workshop last pitch because I do have a three o'clock I got a jump But if you come to the budget workshop what I've done what I learned last year So we make the budget Then we automate it if you're a likes counting client to your actuals with quick books And then when your month closes we override the budgeted amount in a new tab called the forecast With your actuals and you can actually see how you're trending So you thought you were going to finish the year at 23 and you overspent last month Well, you better go back to your budget to figure out how you're going to catch that up How you're going to make it up because right now you're forecasting based on your Bad habit or your oops or whatever happened now you're forecasting only finish the year at 15 percent I had a moment this year in my window cleaning company where I was forecasting To finish the year at 3% net profit and I have never ever in a single year of business not finished the year Without double-digit net profit, you know what I did I got to work. I rolled up my sleeves I read the plan I fixed the plan and I've been counting down the weeks every single week because I said when I hit a goal, I I I achieve it, but it's not by accident It's not because I'm like a victim and I'm passive. I'm like, oh all these bad things happen to me No, because I worked my butt off. Yeah But having a plan is you know Hard work will only get you so far, but if you have a good plan and you know what you're doing That's where the magic happens. Yeah, you got to work that plan not work All right, I know you have a call. I'm gonna see you next Thursday here in northern california in 3d and tom. I'm gonna see you next year here in northern california in 3d And hopefully I'll see you guys on smart business moves before then. Thank you. Megan. You're awesome. I love you both. Bye So much love you too. Bye So I guess we're done We're done But we'll be back next wednesday five o'clock a stream for smart business moves. So then everybody take care. Bye. Bye y'all