Founder's Story - Every Successful Business Needs Marketing and Profits | Ep.55 with NYT Best Selling Author of Profit First Mike Michalowicz

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Michael Michalowicz is an American author, entrepreneur, and lecturer. He is currently an author of seven business books published by Penguin Random House, including Profit First and Clockwork, and is the former host of the "Business Rescue" segment for MSNBC's Your Business. He was previously the small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and hosted the reality television program called Bailout!. Visit his website at https://mikemichalowicz.com/ For more info on guests and future episodes visit KateHancock.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ibhshow/supportOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation, and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs, and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur, and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. Mike, can you tell us a little bit, where did you grow up? So I'm back in the town right now. So I'm broadcasting from a little boot in New Jersey, a little colonial town. It's actually where I grew up. I vowed never to return here after I left high school to come back to this little town. And sure enough, I'm back in town and happy to be here. Love it. Thank you so much. And Mike, what moment from your childhood are you most proud of?

You know, I guess it was defending my friends. You know, and perhaps that inspires the work I do today. I am first and foremost an author. I am an entrepreneur too, but I'm an author. And I believe, you know, just in the room with us right now, there's a lot of underdog entrepreneurs. And I define that by someone who doesn't necessarily have the quote unquote proper education or doesn't have the money or doesn't have the backing, doesn't have the network. In some capacity, we're an underdog. And back in my childhood years, I would defend my friends, not through violence, not through fighting, but to just accept them and, and be accepting of

everyone. And if they were being picked on, hang out with me. If I was being picked on, my friends were, were kind enough to were kind enough to then accept me. So that's what I think I'm most proud of as a kid. And I hope I continue to emanate that value today in the work I do. Thank you for sharing, Mike. And what kind of kid are you in high school? Dork with a big D. Dorky, dorky. You know, it was funny.

I was just looking through pictures of freshman year, and just by chance, I mean, it's pure happenstance, a friend of mine brought the old high school yearbook, and I'm flipping through it, and there's some candid pictures of students. I'm like, wow, who's that really dorky, skinny guy? And I looked again. I'm like, oh, that was me. That was me that was me so um i in high school just uh my my passions were i love math i still actually love math and reading um i wasn't one of the cool kids i didn't really kind of fit in

in that capacity but um i also just kind of discovered uh interests of mine in high school and um really sought out to be hanging out all the different clicks because you in high school and really sought out to be hanging out with all the different cliques because you know high school is so cliquey you got your jocks you got your your smokers yeah like all these different groups and I found that I really didn't fit in any which also meant that I was accepted by all and that's kind of who I was kind of floated around. Oh thank you for sharing that now what was your journey like to get where you are, Mike? To where I am today? You know, I suspect it's like the journey.

I'm looking at the pictures of all the folks in the room right now, and I suspect, I strongly suspect our journeys are similar. So what I'm about to share, I suspect it's also yours. I started my business not because I knew anything about entrepreneurship. Honestly, actually, I didn't even desire to be an entrepreneur. I thought when I would graduate college, I'd get a dream job with some large company, and that would be my career. I actually couldn't get a job. So what happened was when I returned from college i couldn't get the job i wanted so

i worked for a local computer store i was that that that greasy kid that if you were looking to buy a computer back then i was trying to sell you a dot matrix printer along with it because i get a five dollar commission and um i remember one night i went out for drinks with a guy at work there and i was lamenting the boss because i'm like oh you know what the boss does he he sits in the back of the computer store counting the money smoking and chewing on a cigar and like that's what he does and like i'm i'm carrying the weight of this little computer store i'm the man and you know it's amazing it's amazing what liquid courage will do kate because like four beers and I'm like, you know what?

I'm just going to start my own computer store. I'll kick this guy's ass. And this is not a tip on how to start a business. Don't get drunk. But that's what I did. I left this nasty voicemail for the boss man saying, I'm going to kick your ass. I'm starting my own business. Next morning, with some sobriety under me and a massive hangover, I called and I said, you know,

it was a mistake. I'm so sorry. And he said, see you later. Not his words, a little more profane. And I was on my own. I also started my first business. I was 23 or 22. I was already married with my first son. And I came home to my wife and like, we're going to start a business and we're going to be rich. I really believe that if I could make $100,000 in sales, I was making $100,000 take home, which is massive. If I can make a million dollars in sales, I'm a millionaire, which ends up to be total bullshit. As I grew this business, I made no money. I was pulling from my little meager savings to pay payroll. It was pure terror. And I suspect many of us can relate to the journey.

I was very fortunate. I had some what they call exits. Me, I sold some businesses. And those were pinnacle moments. They were fantastic, but I never really understood how to make my businesses profitable when I was running them. I was just lucky to sell them. The turning moment for me and perhaps for many of us was a traumatic moment. I started a third business thinking I simply had to pump and dump my business, build it faster and sell it

faster. And that's how you make a lot of money. But this third business, I was a calamity. I didn't know what I was doing. I was spending good money after bad. I lost, I wiped out everything. And I got a call from my accountant. He said, Mike, I never expected to say this to you, but you got to declare bankruptcy. You are done. Or option two is evaporate your remaining assets, which was a car and a house, a small house. And that's what I did. I felt that my creditors didn't owe my debts. And I had to start again. And that was only like 13 years ago. It was around 2008. And I had to start again. And it was devastating. I had to come home. I'll never forget this. Come home to my family

tell them that we're losing our house we lost it 30 days later we're losing everything because i didn't know how to run a business and i looked at my daughter she was nine years old at the time i wrote about this in profit first i looked at my daughter and i said i can't afford to send you to horseback riding lessons it was 25 for a group session and i was broke I said I can't afford it and I'm sobbing and she's sobbing she ran out of the room I thought she's running away she ran to her bedroom to grab her piggy bank and she ran back to me and she said I never forget this he was daddy since you were no longer able to provide for the family I'll do it and that moment became a defining moment for me I was so

embarrassed ashamed myself I so honored by her. But I realized I didn't get business. I was running business, but I didn't get it. And I think that can link to many of us, that we're in our business, but we seem to be repeating the same experience over and over. And that's what I was doing. And that's when I decided to become an author and write about what I didn't know. So every book you shared in the beginning, all the stuff I've done is actually research

into what I don't know so I can employ it in my own business and hopefully serve others in that journey. Thank you so much, Mike. Now, tell me about when did you start writing The Prophet first and what was the motivation behind it? I have to say, though're you did I mean we were listening to the audible and we were so entertained by you narrating the whole book thank you so I literally just finished up recording my newest book

last week at the studio and I've had now the same producer and his name scott he said to me he's like when you're coming we gotta tell the crew because no one reads a book like you so most authors a little behind the scenes here when you do an audio book you go to a studio a recording studio and they have a seat there for you and your book is literally right in front of you now it's usually on a kindle version so you can scroll through it there's a microphone on your face um i don't sit when i read i'm not sitting right now so if you're watching on streaming or or through our broadcast here you see i'm standing i i don't sit and when i'm reading a book i am jumping around i'm like punching at the microphone i'm like we've got this we can do this um so i'm definitely a

different type of reader and i don't only read the book. I break from script. I'm like, hold on. You have to understand why I wrote this in private first. I wrote this, but there's a reason why I wrote this. And I didn't write that in the book. So you're going to learn this in the audio. And I think that's kind of unique. To answer your question, though, I started writing private first really that year when my daughter came to me at the piggy bank. I didn't know I was writing that book. I just started journaling and taking notes. The number one question that stuck my mind, and this is a statistic that is well documented and researched by US Bank and also the SBA, the Small Business Administration, 83% of small businesses are surviving check by check. There are 250 million small businesses,

I'm sorry, 200 million small businesses in the US now. There's 250 million small businesses. I'm sorry, 200 million small businesses in the US now. There's 300 million globally. And I suspect in this room right now that the majority of us, perhaps even all of us, are defined as small business. The SBA calls a small business a company that has $25 million in annual revenue or less. That's my business for sure and perhaps as many of us in this room. The statistic that blew my mind was 83% of small businesses are surviving check by check. So if you look at all the icons of the people in this room, if you're not surviving check by check, it's all the icons around you statistically. And it blew my mind.

We're in business. The number one reason we're in business is to provide for ourselves and our family. The other number one reason that it kind of goes hand in hand is to live a life of personal freedom. We want to do what we want, what we want, and we want financial freedom to not worry about bills, but we don't achieve either. And that's why I wrote Profit First. I started working on 2008 to say, how can a business consistently be profitable? And I started testing on myself back in 2008 the book itself was published in 2014 I believe it was so we're approaching our eight-year anniversary of the book but the principles are something I've been

working on forever and I used to write for The Wall Street Journal the first article I wrote about profit first which was maybe in 2009 2010 got such a response of people saying oh my gosh this is such a simple system but it is working for me That inspired me to make into a book Thank you so much and Mike if you wouldn't mind sharing as Exactly your blueprints about the profit first. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's do it. So Here's a real simple process and everyone listening in right now

If you got a piece of paper in front of, jot this down because I think this will serve you. First of all is I want to introduce you to a new formula. So if you want to write this one down, you can write the old formula. Sales minus expenses equals profit is the foundational formula in all modern accounting. It achieves what's called the GAAP standard, generally accepted accounting principles. But just if you wrote that down, look at that. And what you'll notice in that formula is while it makes logical sense, you have to have income sales, you subtract expenses, and what's left over is profit. While that makes sense,

notice that profit's at the bottom. In fact, we call it the bottom line or the year end. It makes logical sense, but it doesn't make behavioral sense. When we do something last, we don't do it. If you love your family, you probably say, I love my family. That's why I put them first. You would never say, I love my family so much. That's why I've decided to always put them last. What comes last gets ignored and delayed. What comes first gets done.

So that formula, while it makes logical sense, behaviorally it works against us. And that formula is the reason why so many businesses struggle. We wait until tax time and say, were we profitable? No. Then we kick the can down the road for another year, hoping that we'll be profitable next year. But profit, and you can write this one down too, profit is not an event. Profit is a habit. Profit is not something that's an eventuality, an event. It's something that must happen and be baked into your business every day, every transaction. So here's the new formula. Write this one down if you wish. Sales minus profit equals expenses.

Here's what I'm saying. Every time revenue comes into your business, including today, if a deposit comes in, we're going to take a predetermined percentage of that money, allocate it toward profit, literally at your bank account, at your bank, we're going to allocate to an account called profit, tuck your money in there, that percentage, and reserve it. And perhaps for the first time ever, you actually have a cash profit accumulating. Now, obviously, you're not going to have as much money for expenses. And if you can't pay your bills, we have a simple rule here. If you can't pay your bills, as your business is telling you, you can't afford your bills. There's something fundamentally wrong. So that could be that you are running too many expenses. That's very common. Or we don't have enough margin, which is also very common,

meaning we don't have the prices appropriately priced. Therefore, you can't be profitable. So take your profit first. If you can't pay your bills, there's something we got to fix inside the business. Listen, if I want a 10% profit, take 10%. And if I can't pay that, that means there's something wrong with the business. Fix it by increasing pricing, improving efficiencies, decreasing costs. You got to fix it that way. And then the last part, I know I'm kind of doing a diatribe here, but this has to be said of the bank. Now, the private first basic principles use five bank accounts at your bank.

This is like the old envelope system from yesteryear. My mom, she's of German descent, and she brought this from Germany. She moved here when she was in her mid-20s. I met my father, had myself and my sister, and she had the envelope system. And she worked at a local factory, actually, literally right down the road from where I am right now. And she worked hourly. So sometimes if she worked overtime, she'd get more money.

If she worked less, she'd get less money. But she would take the cash that she got and divide them into envelopes. One said, they're all in German, but one said food, one said the mortgage for the house, one for giving back to the church and the community. Now, when my mom went food shopping, she would grab only the food envelope and she always had enough money. Not the same amount of money, but had enough money. So whatever money was in there, she worked with it. And if she was sick and didn't work much that week, there wasn't much money, and it would be kind of meager food. If she had a lot of money, then she was splurged, which for a German is liver-versed. And if you

don't know what liver-versed is, consider yourself lucky, because that stands for liver sausage. It's absolutely disgusting. True story, but that's what my mother would do. This is the same system, but for your business. We're going to carve up money to its intended use before we spend it. And then when it comes time to spending money, to paying yourself a salary, to distributing profit, the money is allocated to that envelope accordingly at your bank. Wow. Dan, do you have any questions for Mike? Do I still have you I love that Mike

that is phenomenal that is probably one of the best things I've ever heard of Mike can I say you complete me would that be awkward you made my day thank you Daniel do you have a question for Mike? I know Mike, Mike, you're like,

I just enjoy looking at you in camera because I could picture you. I'm jumping around. You're not in Peloton while doing this. Dan, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking the same thing that I'm really inspired because I'm kind of a monotone speaker and I need to get, so you're inspiring me to drum up that energy from deep inside. I think I need a bigger beard. I think that's what it is.

So if you're looking on the feed, I've turned into a civil war general. That's the best definition of myself. I deserve a musket. I'll give you a tip on the beard. So I was beardless until the COVID pandemic. And I just didn't shave for a little bit. And my wife comes to me, she goes, Oh, I like the new look. I'm like, this is a new look. I thought I was just lazy. Then I like her a little bit more. And she's like, I like that. And I'm like, then it stays. Then it's grew a little bit longer than it is today. And she's like, that's not working. I said, then it's gone. So that's how the beard is, how it came about.

And it will stay as long as I get approval at home. The day it's done with her, it's done for everyone. I love that. Thank you, Mike. Yeah, so I have a question then. And I love this profit first. And I know there's probably people that have questions about it. Also, I'm sure paycheck to paycheck. How do I know what expenses I need to take out? Because all of my expenses seem to be what I need for my business. They're mandatory. How could I remove an expense? My business will go under if

I don't have the expense, but I'm also not, I must not be making a profit. I mean, it seems I love, I love the concept and we've used it, but I know there's people out there that are probably thinking like like wait a minute it doesn't work for my business that's a great question and it's a common one the most common feedback I hear from people is I can't take profit until I'm profitable

and that's a mistake because if you do take a profit first it will tell you how to be profitable otherwise we'll never get there here's the reason we never get there. There's a behavioral principle called Parkinson's law. Now, a little behind the scenes magic here. With profit first, it's all based upon behavioral principles, how our mind operates. When we see money, as I shared earlier, allocated to its intended use before we spend it, we typically spend in much more confined areas. If we take

from another account, we feel a pain that we're stealing from ourselves. We'll still do it. And there's ways to navigate that, too. There's a little more advanced and proper first. But I think the most important principle I can share is this concept of Parkinson's law. So real quick history lesson. Parkinson's a theorist in the 1950s. He noticed something interesting about us, that the more we have of a resource, the more we naturally consume.

And as the resource expands, we consume more we have of a resource, the more we naturally consume. And as the resource expands, we consume more of it. His studies were around things like time. For example, if I'm given an hour, say, Daniel, not an hour, say a week, I tell you, hey, I'm going to get you that email I promised you in a week with some of the details. It'll take me a week to get it to you. But if we have the same conversation, the same people about the same thing, and I'll promise to get you the email in one hour, I'm likely to get it done in an hour. So as I constrain the supply of time, I actually work more efficiently with it. That's why all of us in this room right now, if you think about taking tests and stuff and preparing for a test, you may notice that many of us, perhaps all of us, are crammers, that we do

our best studying in the last few days before that big test. That's Parkinson's law. As there's less time available, we become more efficient. But his study expanded beyond just time. Resources. I'll give you an example. Toothpaste. Because everyone, when you brush your teeth tonight, you're going to experience this.

If you have an empty tube of toothpaste, watch how you behave versus a full tube of toothpaste. If you have a full tube of toothpaste tonight, you put that long bead on there. Hopefully it doesn't make that noise, but you put it on there because we have a full tube of toothpaste. But when we have an empty tube of toothpaste, it is shocking how efficient we get at extracting one droplet of toothpaste on one bristle hair. I'm like, that's all I wanted. That's good enough for a fresh minty mouth. And, you know, a new tube of toothpaste lasts, I don't know, a month, but an empty tube of toothpaste can go upwards of a month. When we are, when we have less resources, Parkinson pointed out that we achieve what's called forced frugality, meaning we have to be frugal. And we also become innovative. We find ways of extracting value out

of that scant resource. So to a toothpaste, you'll twist it, you'll turn it, you'll cut off the back end and squeeze out the other side. With money, it's the same way. You may notice in your business since you started it over the months and years since you started it, that perhaps hopefully your income's increased, meaning more money's flowing through your business. But you may have also noticed that money's going out just as fast, almost uncannily. Every time I make a dollar, it seems like magically a dollar disappears within a second. It never stays. Why is that?

Parkinson's law. You see, the resource is expanding. We're getting a bigger tube of toothpaste. We're just squeezing out more. So what happens with profit first is when you have income coming in and we take that profit first, it reduces that tube of toothpaste down to a shriveled up minor tube and it forces frugality, forces innovation. It almost harkens back to when you started your business. When you didn't have anything, you found a way to get things done. You got here after all. So profit first will force

that upon you. It feels scary in the very beginning setting it up. But once you start doing it, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm back to that innovative stage of mine. I can find ways to get the same results I've been getting with less spend. Or I can find ways to charge clients more and they're happily experiencing it. But you have to reverse engineer your way into it. And Profit First will do that for you. Incredible. Thank you. So two-part follow-up question. Number one, why do people get excited

about profit when they haven't paid themselves? It seems like you should pay yourself first and then look at the additional profits. The other part is when it comes to profit margins, a lot of people value their company based on multiples of profit margins. I know people say EBITDA or they even look at their company and say, hey, I have success because I have a 20% profit margin. Does this change all of that or does it align with the similar thought process? Those are damn good questions, my friend. Damn good questions. So the first one in regards to the focus of a profit and not owner's compensation, there are two categories of compensation for what's called an owner-operator. So if you own your business and you also work within your business, you'll be compensated with a profit first system in two ways. And you should be regardless if you use the system or not.

One is your salary. Now, you may have a, it depends on your formation or company. I know there's LLCs in here and S-Corps and C-Corps and everything in between, sole proprietorships. It doesn't matter. You need to get some form of compensation, which may be a distribution or through a paycheck. But the compensation piece should be representative for the work you do. So the real simple way to get there is simply ask yourself, if I had to hire someone to replace me to do all the stuff that I do here, what would

I have to reasonably pay that person? I bet you it's a boatload of cash. You then deserve to be paid a boatload of cash because you are that person. So that's your salary setting is if we replaced you, your company should consider itself lucky because it scored the best employee you'll ever get, which is you, and now it needs to pay you for that. Profit is something different. Profit is a reward for owning a business, for contributing to our global economy, for providing jobs.

And even if you don't have employees, you are providing jobs. You probably have vendors. You probably use software. You probably have purchased materials, equipment, perhaps. All that stuff is providing jobs. Profit distributions are a recognition for taking the risk of starting a business. Sadly, many businesses don't make it. And the fact that you're here on this call and you're making it right now, you deserve to be rewarded for that.

That's what's called a shareholder distribution. Just to put this in a real simple term, I own stock in Ford. Not a stock tip, by the but i do own stock in ford ford sent me last quarter a distribution check for 13 or 100 shares and here's why i didn't like open up and say oh my gosh i don't deserve this ford let me return the money and i didn't say i gotta head down to the factory and work for a little bit until i earn this i I'm a shareholder. I took risk in investing in them. And my intention, hope is the value goes up, but it could go down. That is recognition for the risk I took. That's the same with our small business. You are a shareholder in your small business. And for some of us, it's a hundred percent. We own a lot of shares. Maybe you have a partner, maybe you own 50%, but you own a lot of shares. That profit is

a reward for that. And the owner's comp is for the work you do. So that's that. In regards to the value of your company, you asked about multiples and so forth. When a company, listen, the greatest retirement mechanism is selling your company. Sadly, about 1% of companies actually ever get sold. So we need to fix that right now. Do you know the most viable component of a business for an acquisition is the profitability? The buyer, whoever's buying your business, could be venture capital, could be investment bankers, could be another sole proprietor, could just be a person that's looking to start a business.

All of them are making investments in their future, and they want something that's going to return money to them. They're not just, unless they're total fools, they're not just coming to you and say, hey, here's some money, have fun, and I'm going to destroy this business. They want a business that's going to continue on without you. And they want to have a business that's going to return money to them.

The number one way to prove a business can make money is the proof that it's made money by the cash going in that bank. So if you can show your bank statements and quarter after quarter, there's accumulating profits, when that acquirer comes to you, you can say, listen, we've had seven years of profit and profitability and it's increasing. Is this something you want? They will go gaga over you. They will go crazy because businesses generally aren't that profitable. So the more profitable

you are, the higher your valuation. So Profit First will help you with that significantly. Incredible. Thank you, Mike. I guess one part here, and then we'll go to your new book, and then we'll open it up after that. Great. And I just wanted to clarify, is it 11%? Is this the percent that you start with, or is it less than that? So Profit First, in the book itself, if you get Profit First, available on Amazon right now, if you get Profit First- Go get Profit First, available on Amazon right now. If you get Profit First. Go get Profit First, please, right now. Seriously, it's a great book.

Thank you. Thank you. But honestly, if you don't want to get it, that's cool. You can just Google this and you'll find information about it. There's different ranges of profitability that the optimized companies take. And I've documented all of that from my research. If you've never been profitable, I suggest you start at 1% of your top line. We got to dip our toe in the water and move slowly. Here's the deal. If $1,000 came

in as deposits today, that's not a bad day. If I take 1% of that's $10, I'm going to put in a profit account. If I can run my business off $1,000 deposits, I likely can run off $990. And that's the key. I don't want to hurt my business, but I want to start proving to myself that, hey, I can start accumulating some profit. I know you're not going to get rich this way, but you are going to start building confidence in yourself. Then over time, as more money comes in, that'll slowly grow. Then maybe a month or two later, you move that 1% profit to 2%. And then maybe ultimately to 3%, 4%, or 5%, you start rolling out the entire system. And they'll start squeezing down your operating expenses and you got to look at improving margins and so forth but but our rule here is start slow

and let it grow incredible thank you mike so lastly before we go to questions can you explain about your new book and what's the motivation behind that yeah so. So I'm, if I'm not jacked up already, I am jacked up over this new book. It's about marketing. And what I did is boil down to the essence of effective marketing. My estimate is most marketing goes unnoticed, is ineffective, not because the intent isn't there, just because the strategy is wrong. And so I'll show you the strategy in a second, but I want to start off with this component. Everyone listening in right now, everyone participating right now,

we all have a responsibility to market. I was asking you a real question, a simple question. We can do this as a rhetorical one, so you don't have to answer it. But the answer in your head, is the product or service that you offer to your prospects and clients better in some capacity or in many capacities or in all capacities

than your competition? Are you better than the competition? And I suspect in at least some ways we are all better. We're small business. You're definitely better than big business. They move like a sloth pace. They don't care about their customers like we do. And if you feel you're better than your competition in any capacity, you have a responsibility

to market. Because if a customer is using your competitor's offer and not yours, the customer is losing out. But it's our problem for not getting noticed. And so that's why I've been soapboxing about marketing. We have to market. You have a responsibility to market and get noticed. It is actually the ultimate act of kindness.

Because if you believe in what you do, if you really serve others, you've got to get out there and get noticed is actually the ultimate act of kindness. Because if you believe in what you do, if you really serve others, you got to get out there and get noticed. It's your responsibility. And that's why I wrote this book. The real simple system is it's based upon a framework. That's an acronym. It's called DAD. And those three letters stand for the three stages of what makes marketing work. First, it must differentiate from everyone else. The first time I got a hey friend email, I was like, oh my gosh, I have a friend who called me friend? Like, what friend is this friendly friend?

Like, I don't know who this is. And I'm like, oh, it's cheesy marketing that I don't care about. The next hey friend that came through, I'm like, oh, is this gonna be marketing? And it was, I've never looked at a hey friend again. The first hey friend was smart. The second one was a

copycat and everyone else is white noise. What we have to do is be the new thing. So first differentiate to get noticed. But the second thing is you must attract, meaning it must be something that's of service to your prospect. Maybe it serves a need they have. Maybe it simply entertains them. Maybe it invokes curiosity and intrigue, but it must be of service in some capacity. If it's not attractive, it will repel. And the last component is it must direct. Direct means you must have a specific call to action for the customer. But here's the key. It needs to be reasonable for them. If you're looking to buy a car and I'm a car salesperson, you come into my lot and I'm like, hey, give me $50,000 right now and let's go find you a great car. You'd be like, who are you, you weirdo? If I instead said, hey, you're looking for a car, would you be willing to give me your cell number so I can text you pictures of the inventory we have? That makes it a lot more reasonable and it's a step closer to the ultimate transaction of the sale. Safe steps.

So any marketing you do, any of your competitions in marketing, simply ask yourself, it's a little bit weird, does dad approve? There's a little bit of a creep factor going on there. But does dad approve, meaning does it differentiate, does it attract, and does it direct? If it misses any of those three elements, it's destined to be doomed. If it passes those three tests, now you set yourself up for success with marketing. And that's what this new book, Get Different, is about. Wow. Big difference, right? Profit, marketing.

Seems like you put those two together. So if people read both books, that's how they're going to succeed in business. I hope so. You know, the foundation of every business is its sales. No sales, your business is suffocating. The next thing that brings stability to business is profitability. If you have no profitability, you have no stability in your living day to day, and that's a horrible way to live, and most entrepreneurs do.

So I do feel they work in conjunction, and I hope they serve folks in conjunction. I would just say, if you're considering where to get started, ask yourself right now, what is the biggest challenge I'm facing? Do I not have enough lead flow? Do I not have enough profitability? Do I have other issues like hiring talent and stuff?

I haven't written those books, but there's great books out there on that. And that's the subject you should read. What does your business need next? Do that. Incredible. Thank you, read. What does your business need next? Do that. Incredible. Thank you, Mike.