Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome back to the Total profit podcast. I'm T2 and I'm here with my co pilot, the man who never leaves profit up to chance, Tommy P. How's it going today? Good.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: February. Can you believe it?
[00:00:22] Speaker A: No, no. Yeah, the year's flying by already.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: I know.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah. If we did leave profit up to chance, we both would be working weekends and we'd be wondering where all the money went. Right?
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
So today's episode is a little bit of a wake up call with love. It's the month of love. Right.
Because if you're still treating profit like a happy accident, then it's time for a new approach.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: It just doesn't happen by chance.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: We had a new client not long ago. Jeff. And Jeff was.
Jeff was the textbook example of hustle. The guy, he was booked six weeks out. He barely had time to eat lunch.
His phone never stopped ringing. He was that guy. But you know what else never stopped was his stress. He was constantly stressed. His cash flow was always tight. He couldn't take a paycheck on a schedule. And he told us something that I'll never forget. He said, I don't get it. I am working my tail off and I still feel like I'm losing.
What an awful feeling.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Hopeless.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Hopeless. And it's because he was, you know, he wasn't managing his profit. Right. He was just kind of reacting to the chaos.
And so one of the first things that we did in onboarding with Jeff was that we showed him his profit allocation and just kind of a simple chart that answers a hard question, which is, where is every dollar supposed to go?
Where is every dollar supposed to go? For the first time, Jeff kind of created a map of his money and created a calendar. And we helped him sort of just install a rhythm. Weekly check ins, monthly margin reviews, and a quarterly strategy. And so there was.
The way he put it was no more crossing my fingers at tax time.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: No. We were Jeff's accountability partner.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: That's right. Yes. And profit stopped being an accident and it became a result of a very focused system.
So this is the heart of phase two of the performance margin zone. It's the realization that systems, not speed, but those systems are what creates sustainability and that discipline is what's going to drive your profitability. Not the hustle. It's.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: You mentioned co pilot. As we're coming to the segment, it's like flying an airplane. There's checklists and everything has its place. And it's. You have you take $1 and you work it through your, you know, your variable and fixed costs and that's how you find your profit.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: And we've identified three systems that make your profit very predictable.
So these are three tools that we use to help every client build during their onboarding that make that, make that profit predictable. And it's not accidental. One is that profit allocation that we did with Jeff. So we identify where every dollar is supposed to go before it is spent. So before you go out, you know, it's a plan, it's basically a proactive plan. And then there's that revenue, that rhythm calendar. So those weekly and monthly check ins, that quarterly strategy so you are never caught off guard again.
And then the last one we call the margin map. And that's, we talked about it last time. Basically a breakdown of your profitability by the job type. Right. Or by your crew or by your service line. Kind of whatever makes the most sense for your business so that you know what actually works. What exactly works.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: And you said that very well, what works for your business. Because not all businesses are the same.
So it's detailed to exactly where your work is being performed, how you're working and how the outcome is going to be. It's a predictability, not a reaction.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Without these, you're, you're just kind of hoping for profit. And with us you're actually planning for it.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: And it's predictable. Quick episode this week, but your challenge for this week is to ask yourself one question. Where does my money go?
And if you don't know the answer, then it's time to stop guessing and start knowing, as we like to say. So get your plan in place before your next crisis hits. And that's how you build a business that pays you first, not last. You don't get the leftovers, you actually build your payment into the. Into the plan.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Next week we're going to dig into the power of systems and how the right structure frees you up to lead the train and get ahead of that speeding train and start pulling it yourself instead of just reacting to the chaos like we said earlier. So structure creates freedom.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Exactly. And if you're feeling tense and uptight, don't worry, take her cool. Everything's going to be working out.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Don't get too excited. It's all under control.
