Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hey, friends, welcome back to the Total profit podcast. I'm T2, your hostess, strategist, and head instigator, and I'm joined, as always, by the margin whisperer, Tommy P. T. Hi.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: How are you?
[00:00:22] Speaker A: I'm good, I'm good. It's good to see you in the studio again. Are you ready to kick off another season?
[00:00:26] Speaker B: I'm so excited. This is going to be a great year.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: It's. It is season two of the Total Profit Podcast, and, yeah, it's exciting.
We are back, we're bold, and we're going to start with a truth bomb. Hustle is not the same as profit, and you know it. We've all lived it. The late nights, the weekends, the constant grind, and only to look at the bottom line and just kind of wonder where it all went. Right.
I've never seen somebody outgrind a bad, bad strategy. We should probably put that on a T shirt, right?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: This episode kicks off our new theme for quarter one. All right. The Profit operating zone.
So think of it as a mindset shift that takes you from the overwhelmed operator to a very strategic owner.
And talk me through kind of what some of the steps are in the profit operating zone and how people are kind of waking up to the fact that hard work doesn't necessarily guarantee profit.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of the slowdown to speed up philosophy, and it's very pointed. And it starts with questions to find out where the owners are having their pinch points, what's causing those anxieties throughout the day, and are you still wincing when you hit the send button on those.
Those quotes that you're sending out and why?
It's a conversation that starts us down the path to and where those. Those uncertainties are. And then we. We formulate and then we have a process that we bring them along on this journey of being profitable. And it's. It's our. Our teaser is. Is. Wouldn't it be great to sit in front of your accountant and know what they're going to say?
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Exactly.
So I had a call with a client recently, and she said, I've been working like a maniac for three years. Three years, and I still can't pay myself consistently. My heart broke for her, but she found us. And what she didn't realize, like so many other people, is that the game she was playing kind of. It had no scoreboard. It had no scoreboard. So it's kind of the curse of the hustle. You're in motion all the time, but you're not really in control.
Phase one of the profit operating zone is really all about curiosity.
So it's that gut feeling that something is missing. It's that nagging question, why am I so busy and I'm still so broke? And that curiosity is a gift. It's because when you lean into it, you realize that the issue really isn't how hard you work, it's what you're working on. Yeah.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: It's that missing component. You know something's wrong, but you don't.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Know what it is.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: So until you know how your costs are formulated, it's going to linger in you and drive you bananas.
So we have those conversations and it truly is a numerical science. We put the pieces together. It's almost like Legos. And you're building yourself into your future.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: I like that you're building yourself in your future. Well, when somebody joins TPM Total Profit Management, we don't just throw software at them. Right. The first thing we do is we schedule that margin clarity session and we ask a lot of questions and we pinpoint what's been missing so that you don't keep repeating the same year over and over again.
And we look at the financials. We're also asking, are you pricing things? Right. Are you tracking margin by line of business?
Are you staffing just based on workload or based on hope or just so that you have people to delegate stuff to so that you don't feel so busy?
It's kind of like cleaning out a junk drawer that first session. Right.
You didn't know how bad it was until you just like dumped the drawer out and laid everything out and went, oh my gosh, there's a lot of trash in here.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: So we want our listeners to know that you're not alone. If you're stuck in that cycle, there's a way out. And it starts by asking better questions, tracking better numbers, and being open and to seeing your business a little bit differently.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. Because every business has its own unique cost, its own unique equations.
You can look at your competitors and wonder how they're doing it, but it really, the end of the day, their costs aren't your costs. So using that energy and coming back and, and trying to figure out what is this costing me and then how do I mark it up to competitive. It is a journey that we walk through and it's taking the, the pen and paper along with us. We don't leave it. And you have this insecurity that you don't have your, your bidding software pen and paper that you've had for 30 years. And, and you're going into the technology zone. We, we work with you and we become part of your team.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: And we have yet to work with a client where we've, where we haven't been able to uncover some costs that they were not translating into their bids, be it insurance on your trucks or depreciation on some of your equipment that business owners may or may not be putting into their, their job cost and then marking that up. So there's. We have yet to work with a business owner that we haven't been able to uncover some additional costs that they're not accounting for when they bid.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it's when they find those, it is that aha. Moment of wow. Now this makes sense. And it takes that level of discouragement away because you feel, feel comfortable because you know what your costs are and then you know how you can mark it up.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
It's a difference between chasing cash and building a company.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Big difference. Right. All right, so this week, take an hour, sit down with your numbers, your revenue, your expenses, and your time. And the question I want you to ask yourself is, am I being paid like the owner of this business or am I just the most stressed out employee?
And if the answer is no, get curious. That's your turning point.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Because at the end of the day, you're not looking to take on more work. You're looking to transfer those responsibilities to the people that are the true reason you hire them.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: You want your business to run smoothly. You want your business to run like a well oiled machine. And it may feel like it some days, but if at the end of the month you don't have as much cash flow as you thought you did, as you thought you should, then something's off. Yes, something is off.
All right, so next week we're talking about the hidden costs that are killing your margin. Today was really about the wake up moment and the realization that hustle is not your business model. Strategy is. Okay, so remember, take her. Cool.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Everything's going to be fine.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Don't get too excited. It's all under control.
