The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Cash Flow: Your Business's Hidden Treasure | Mike Milan
Ever wondered how some businesses seem to have plenty of cash while others with similar revenue struggle to make payroll? The secret lies in understanding the financial gap between money coming in and money going out—and nobody explains this better than Cashflow Mike.
In this eye-opening episode, Mike Milan shares his remarkable journey from state trooper to financial expert, revealing how accident reconstruction mathematics gave him the breakthrough he needed to understand business finances in practical, applicable ways. "I didn't understand math until I was a state trooper," Mike explains, describing how connecting abstract concepts to real-world scenarios transformed his relationship with numbers.
Mike introduces us to the counterintuitive concept of "growing broke"—being so successful that you actually run out of money. Through colorful stories about his experiences running multiple businesses (from janitorial services to restaurants and property management), he illustrates how extending payment terms to clients while still needing to meet regular expenses creates a dangerous cash flow trap that can sink even thriving companies.
The heart of this episode focuses on Mike's Clear Path to Cash program and how it helps businesses identify hidden cash through analyzing just nine key numbers from financial statements. This approach has helped his clients uncover over $150 million in hidden cash without increasing sales. Rather than chasing revenue, Mike emphasizes focusing on gross profit—the only cash available to cover operating expenses or contribute to net profit.
For business owners feeling the cash crunch despite solid sales, this episode provides practical insights into six key calculations that reveal where cash is hiding in your business. Whether you're running a construction company, a service business, or any small to medium enterprise, Mike's accessible approach to financial analysis will transform how you view your business finances.
Ready to find the hidden cash in your business? Visit cashflowmike.com for a free Seven Minute Conversation course that will help you understand your business finances better than you have all year.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemilan/
Mike@cashflowmike.com
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=cash%20flow%20mike
clear path to cash
But there's some math to it and, like I said earlier, I didn't understand math until I was a state trooper. People are going what does that mean? I still don't know what that means, but okay, so check this out right In high school college. I've got an MBA from Baylor University here in Texas. You might have heard of them Sick and Bears, right.
Speaker 2:Hey Sick and Bears, that's where my son's going law school. Is it really Very excited?
Speaker 1:Yep, they come bears, right on, right on, so I. So here's what I didn't do. I wasn't that great at math and school, it just wasn't clicking. They sent me to a school as a state trooper, to this thing called accident reconstruction school, where they actually teach you either calculus or trigonometry or geometry to be able to calculate people's speed based on the evidence on the roadway right, I mean, how far somebody skid, how slick the surface is, hey, if they go down into a ditch and then launch and then take off into the air, what the ramp angle is, you know, rise over run. As soon as they started talking to me about math in those terms, everything made sense. So I took what I learned from being a trooper and started going. Oh well, when I do this in business, these are the actions that represent X or Y or whatever it is. If you can connect it to something real that you do every single day, math comes to life.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. Oh my god, alan, we're getting ready to rock and roll. You know, I was just uh, I was just uh. Of course, yeah, I had to because, well, um, guys, every once in a while we're getting older and Al and I are getting ready to rock and roll. We've got a bourbon ready to rock. We're going to have a great time helping everybody out a little bit.
Speaker 2:But let me tell you a story. So I was at one of our mastermind groups here in Atlanta, and my man says so I'm working with everybody across the world. I'm working with people from Europe. I'm working with everybody across the world. I'm working with people from Europe. I'm working from people with Asia. I'm working from people with Canada. I'm working for people in Mexico. I'm working with people from Texas and we're like, uh, the Texas is another world. Oh, hell, yeah, it is. We got we got a cashflow mic on from San Antonio, texas. And why do I know that Texas thinks it's their own damn state? Because my son has moved there and I got to see that in full flavor. I'm like, holy shit, they do not think they're a part of us in the US, texas Republic.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love it. They're going to save us all one of these days, I think.
Speaker 2:I will say one thing though yeah, I said he did. We actually said you should have said California, because that can be its own state. I'm good with that, 100%. But Texas, no, you got to bring them in. So we got Mike. We're going to be talking money. Who doesn't want to talk about money? It's your favorite thing Money.
Speaker 3:It's like you're Oprah, my favorite things, just money, you get money and you get money, and you get money.
Speaker 2:Oprah, where was my money? I've actually seen one of oprah's houses out of napa that is not fair because oprah could give everybody g6 and I just wanted. I've seen oprah's house in santa barbara, montecito specifically right, yeah so it's like it's one of those things who's seen oprah's houses, everybody's seen oprah's houses.
Speaker 3:You know I have an oprah story I want to tell you. One of these days she healed my wife.
Speaker 2:There's no way. Yes, there is. You gotta tell that story. You gotta tell the story.
Speaker 3:Mike's gonna have to wait. We're gonna have to hear how your wife was healed by Oprah. We were at a big event in Atlanta and she was actually the guest and she dropped a million dollars on Morehouse College and it was a big surprise and my wife was almost nine months pregnant. And all of a big surprise, and my wife was almost nine months pregnant and all of a sudden the noise and the excitement and everything just was too much and I'm like, oh, she's going to get sick. So my nine-month pregnant wife just blows through the back doors at this big black tie event and I'm chasing after her and I actually see there's some big guys outside the bathroom. Why are they standing so close to the bathroom and they try to stop her. But there was no stopping my nine month pregnant wife.
Speaker 2:I don't care who the fuck you are. Oprah, you could be the queen of England If you're a nine month pregnant lady. Every lady would understand that girl needs to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3:She's in the bathroom and she's washing her face. Oprah comes out of the stall and sees my wife and she sees she's in pain and she goes, are you okay? And next thing you know she's stroking her face. Of course we were making jokes like did Oprah wash her hands? And that kind of thing. Out of the other stall comes Coretta Scott King and the two of them are standing on either side of my wife comforting her in this bathroom at this massive event where oprah's the star of it and she's dropping all this money on morehouse college the best part of this story, everybody, if you have not been listening for the last three and a half years because the small business safari has been rocking it, judy uh is not an extrovert.
Speaker 2:judy is not the one that you are going to see this happening to. So the fact that these two incredibly well-known ladies are helping her Figures stroking your face and just making sure that she's okay.
Speaker 3:Oh, come on, mike, what do you think of that?
Speaker 1:one Dude. Hey, live from San Antonio. I feel like I'm jumping into something special here. You guys are just all over the place Mike's in for San Antonio.
Speaker 3:This is the way it always is We'll get you in here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll get you in a minute, all right. So, oh my God, I mean honestly, you know you could say oh, I don't like Oprah or this or that, or the world that we're in with the politics and the bullshit that's going on out there guys. But look, promise you, being here from Atlanta, that's a very special lady. That was a big deal.
Speaker 3:That was a big night and they didn't need to do it and they could have been like, oh, get away from me.
Speaker 2:And they showed their true people. Yep Right. 100% Loved it, and I think that's the part that we don't all get closer together than we think. This is not a political podcast. This is not a Liskumbaya podcast. This is a how the hell can I make some money in my small business podcast?
Speaker 3:Let's get it going. Who can we talk to about finding hidden money? I don't know who can we talk to. Let's go to San Antonio, Mike come on.
Speaker 2:I've been calling him money Mike. I was calling him magic Mike. He goes no.
Speaker 3:I'm cash. I was calling him magic.
Speaker 2:Mike, yes, you were big guy. That's another special thing that we're not going to talk about and we're not doing any stroking. All right, let's get back to this.
Speaker 3:What's Mike going to do with that?
Speaker 1:I've got to tell you what. This is the most incredible opening to a podcast I've never been part of right. So you guys are bringing the heat man. I can feel my blood racing through my veins right now just listening to you.
Speaker 2:Mike, let's get pumped up.
Speaker 3:Mike, you're from Texas, let's go man, we had to bring him. He's from Texas. We got to bring the heat. Don't mess with Texas. Hey, don't mess with Texas, right? Don't mess with us.
Speaker 2:I love it. All right, Mike, welcome to the show. All right, man, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's interesting, right? So I'm Cashflow Mike and I find hidden cash in businesses. I'm actually training a lot of advisors right now to help their businesses. I'm on a mission to eliminate cash flow as a reason that businesses fail. So think about that. Right, I'm on a mission to do that, and the way I do it is through a program I built called the Clear Pad to Cash. Anybody can do it. I mean, I'm a former state trooper and I finally learned math.
Speaker 1:And so now I can actually teach others how to understand it as well.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about this a little bit more, because we've talked about this often. And this month, this year, this summer, we've got a intern at our place here at the trusted toolbox, loving luke, which goes by lukie bear. Can't get into that, I'm not gonna touch that. But because our it guy uh, it's his, uh, it's his stepson, and uh, they had to set up his computer and his daughter thought it'd be funny if she could set up her brother's uh computer and uh, so we saw it. We came up and like, hey, uh, lukie bear, how about doing that in front of like 15 handyman and five project managers in the construction world? And his computer pulled up, lukie bear, oh, this kid's got it going on, but he owned it. It was good, all right. So let's get back to this. Can we talk about our guest? No, we're getting back to lukie bear. So I was telling him he wanted to know he goes.
Speaker 2:Chris, is there? Any way? You could tell me a little bit more about business and what should I be looking for? I said look, here's the one thing I'm not going to tell you. In college, man, cash is king. Revenue drives your business. Revenue looks like this You've got to have sales man. I said that's why I get out there and hump it and sell every single time I can. That's why I train my estimators. That's why you always hear me yelling to them about sales. I said but cash is king, and if you don't have the cash you can't do a lot of things. So let's talk cash man.
Speaker 3:I want to know before we talk cash.
Speaker 2:how on earth do you go from being a state trooper in the Republic of Texas to being Magic Mike the cash king? It is super easy.
Speaker 3:Cash flow, mike. Yeah, there you go, he's not dancing for money Put those dollar bills away Alan, right now. No.
Speaker 1:It's super easy. Here's how it happens. Your family outgrows your income. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Necessity. There you go. Yeah, it's a mother of all inventions. Another entrepreneur is extruded from society. That's right. There you go. Yeah, it's a mother of all. Another entrepreneur is extruded from society. That's right.
Speaker 2:There you go. Every entrepreneur built out of necessity. All right, so you built this thing, but tell us how you got this idea. Where'd you see this? Because it sounds easy, but we all know it ain't.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean first of all you have to. You have to follow the worst path in the world and start 14 businesses and take second mortgages out on your house and max your credit cards and fight with your wife and all those things first. So you got to do that for about 14, 15 years before you figure out cash flow.
Speaker 2:I'm at 17. Check, okay, 17.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so you're on the back end of it. I mean, you're already past all of that now. I am You're on the all of that now. But really that's what happened. You know, I was in the National Guard as well. So I mean, I did 16 years in National Guard.
Speaker 1:So the two skills I had coming into the entrepreneurial world was, well, being a police officer and being in the Army. Neither one of those really translate to civilian world. So what happens is you learn how to clean in both of those jobs, in the barracks in the police academy and then all the barracks at the army as well. So I built a janitorial company that quickly became a hotel staffing company. You're like, oh wait, how'd that happen? Right, yeah, I had this knack for recruiting right, because I had a connection with the parole office in a janitorial company and I mean this is, yeah, true how it happened.
Speaker 1:So I had a client that went and became a hotel manager and says, hey, I can't hire you as a cleaning company, but how can I recruit, how can I just get people from you? So I started just offloading or offshoring not offshoring, it's a what's that called Staffing right, temporary staffing into the hotel we were providing heart of the house positions such as housekeeping, housemen, landscapers, people that did the dishes and banquet serving all these heart of the house positions and that's how you quickly can grow is niche down into hotel staffing, but it's also how you can also run out of money. I had a phenomenon called growing broke.
Speaker 2:Right, you ever heard of that? I've heard this one, yeah, but I haven't. Well, no, I lived it. Yeah, talk about it, yeah, go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. Well, growing broke is, very simply, you're so successful that you run out of money. Right is very simply, you're so successful that you run out of money. Right, so successful, you run out of money Because what had happened was Marriott got a hold of the business model that I had and it was quite simple I'm going to take away people's reasons not to go to work, right? So that's what I had going in my favor is that if somebody says I can't come to work because I don't have a babysitter we had a list of 10 babysitters If somebody said they had to take Uncle Joe to the doctor, you go to work, I'm going to take Uncle Joe to the doctor. So that's basically my whole business model was making sure people went to work, because if you didn't go to work and get paid, neither did I.
Speaker 1:Right, based on the model that we had opened 27 offices in nine states in three years, right, it had a couple hundred people working for us every single day. And when you do that, marriott tends to sit on your invoices, right, they'll sit on your invoices for 60 or 90 days. And guess what happens on my side every two weeks You're paying. Payroll comes out every two weeks. So that's how you run into a cash crunch real fast. So when I learned about, cash flow was right there.
Speaker 1:When I'm stressed out, when I don't know if I'm going to make payroll, I'm not paying myself. And that was all during the early 2000s. So how did I solve it? Well, I actually spoke with the bank and learned this thing called the financial gap. It's the difference between money coming in versus money going out, and the smaller the gap between those two, the less money it takes to run your business, right, and that's what your working capital is supposed to cover, right?
Speaker 1:Is that gap? Well, nobody ever tells you that. That's what it's for. They said you have so much working capital. They don't tell you how much you need, they just tell you how much you have. So once I figured out an equation to be able to come up with how much I need, it made it a lot simpler, because I know I could pull some levers like reduce payroll or reduce the amount of time it took me to get paid, and that actually made the gap smaller, right? Well, with that in mind, I bought a restaurant because I was getting paid in 90 days at some point in time. With Marriott. I bought a restaurant because I could get money coming in every single day. Let me tell you why You're a masochist.
Speaker 2:You're fucking crazy. You're insane. Not only did he say he was in the army, but he's also a policeman. Thank you for your service, but oh my God, you're insane, bro. You started a restaurant business. Got to tell me why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it was a cash-based business and not only that, it worked right, so I found this poorly managed. You get your money that day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's not a net 90, net 60.
Speaker 1:It worked so well that I built a restaurant. Then I bought a building with a restaurant in it. Then I bought nine more buildings apartment buildings and all three of those worked. All five of those now property management. Three bar restaurants and a hotel staffing company worked at once Because I could take the housekeepers out of the hotel, clean the apartments. I had a two-man repair crew for the apartments that also fixed the restaurants and then I had the same POS ran it like a franchise. These three restaurants all together and I'm telling you it was working, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2:You have a beautiful mind, because that's a lot of work. I'm just a handyman and this is even for me. I'm like, wow, he built something. He saw something early. Uh, I felt like there was a butt coming now. Is there a butt?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the butt is that's. I mean that's how I solved the problem. But the butt was you can't scale it and you're going to burn out fast. I think about three to four years in a restaurant business of owning three of them at a time is all I could stand. I was burnt out. The only way to scale a restaurant is open another restaurant. The only way to scale a hotel staffing company is go get more hotels and open more offices. And the only way to scale apartments is buy more real estate. So it's one of those things where I was stuck in my own trap.
Speaker 3:But I mean, isn't that the definition of scaling? I mean well.
Speaker 2:I think that, yeah, that's the traditional norm, yeah, right. So what are we missing here, mike? Mike, help me.
Speaker 3:This was 2012.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is 2012,. Right, what was happening around 2012? All of the internet commerce was starting right. All the internet commerce was starting right Because the bankers had already burnt down the world, which made it harder for me to get money. Yeah, I saw Chris's face go. What Like? Yeah, in 2008, the bankers burnt down the world.
Speaker 2:I was a banker and started this in 2008. Then you know exactly what I'm talking about right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we burnt down the building. Yeah, Go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, no, you're right, no, you're right. There was no money to be found, so here we go. Gee thanks, chris.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here we go. Gee, thanks, chris.
Speaker 3:Yeah, chris, yeah, so chris got dodd frank passed chris burnt down the world and now here he is, hiding out in his basement doing a podcast.
Speaker 2:That's what I do now if I had in my pocket? I'm in my basement. I know I'm drinking bourbon with my buddy. I don't want to come out. Mom, don't make me some lasagna, all right, let's get back to Mike Lasagna, all right. So I obviously I crushed your dream, mike, and I apologize.
Speaker 1:You didn't crush my yeah, you didn't crush my dream, you actually made it better, right.
Speaker 3:All right, let's talk. I'll tell you what. Don't let him out Mike.
Speaker 1:I'm not letting him out because there's a moral. I have none. It's after there you go, there you go. So after 2008, the banks left the space because it was just as expensive to do a $50,000 loan as it was a $5 million loan because they had to do the same amount of paperwork. So they all went upstream. That gave rise to alternative and marketplace lenders. So Cabbage and On Deck and Lending Club, lendio all these places started popping up to be able to give small business loans. Well, they exploded because small businesses gravitated towards them. Well, I sold my company to a larger competitor in 2011.
Speaker 1:I was looking for something to scale and, like I said, e-commerce was kind of hot at the time. Right, amazon had already figured it out. You know how to do this stuff. So I wanted to get into software. Darn hard to get into software when you're a restaurateur, a trooper, a soldier, you know, hotel staffing manager. I had no coding experience or whatever, but what I knew was how to finance small business. So I found a company in Seattle that was creating a product it's called Finnegraph that automated the data collection for banks, right To make the process of lending to small businesses easier. And I'm like, hey, I should be able to get in there. So I pretty much begged these guys to let me into their company and what I did was I was able to go talk to the banks about how to talk to the small business owner. So I built a program that I called how to talk to me, right, how to talk to the small business owner, and build what they call relationship banking.
Speaker 1:Now, right, which is getting involved, cause there's three. There's three big complaints I think we all have about the bank. Do you know what they are Small business owners have about the bank? No, hit us All, right. So, first one, I call Lotto L-O-T-O, which is loan officer turnover. I feel like I got to tell the same story to a different guy every single week, right? Yep, it's just like. And then he moves to a new bank and he tries to steal me and bring me over to his new bank with him, right? So it's all this turnover is chaos.
Speaker 1:I don't like that about the bank. The second thing I don't like the bank is that they never stop by, and the only time they stop by is to sell me something like oh, here's my new credit card offer of the week. I had no vehicles on my balance sheet, except for one to go to the restaurants and the hotel mine. Why would you offer me fleet leasing, right? So they're not paying attention to my business, right? They're just trying to sell me whatever they're pushing that month. The last thing was they're dumb D-U-M-B. Not dumb as in unintelligent. It means I don't understand my business, right, they didn't understand my business, that is awesome.
Speaker 3:I mean, could you?
Speaker 2:I wish I would have said that back when I was at the bank.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so good yeah right, I understand your business, bro, oh my God. But Mike, he'll use it in one of his next. I wrote the book on it. Employee meetings oh my God. Good news is.
Speaker 2:Oh, you already wrote the book. I can't steal that one. Well, you'll steal it, you just won't publish it. I'll steal it and then I'll tell Alan Mike has created a book, so he just flashed the book. Man, flash it again for us so we can all tell everybody the title, because I know you're all driving around in your trucks doing your thing.
Speaker 1:Get it going.
Speaker 2:Don't be a dumb B-D-U-M-B business owner. That's Mike Mylan or Mylan.
Speaker 1:It is. It was Mylan. You're right. I mean, you're the first person that's ever got it right. I got my island right. How about that? Yeah, I usually have to teach people a song to be able to remember it Right. Let's hear it. All right, this land is your land. This land is my land.
Speaker 2:Don't be a dumb business owner now. Here we go.
Speaker 3:Is that the craziest thing that is?
Speaker 2:That's good, all right. My island, all right. Hit us, keep going.
Speaker 1:So that's what bankers did, and so you were filling that gap, yeah, and we were trying to build trust, credibility and authority as a big startup or a small startup at the time a big startup, it's hard to get into a bank. You're not going to trust these young guys. One guy's never been a banker and the other two worked at Microsoft. Right, and we did have somebody on the board that was a vice president at Bank of America, which I think that means he was the janitor but branch manager. He was bigger than that. But I mean we didn't have a lot of name recognition. But through that seminar series I caught the attention of the CEO at the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. They asked me to come talk to the group and from there I got the reputation of being able to be a small business banking expert, believe it or not. So now I'm on the graduate school of banking faculty at the Colorado University of Colorado and I spent five years at the LSU at Louisiana State University, at the Graduate School of Banking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, about that. Huh, Come on now go Bayou. That's where Troy's from my buddy. We talk about him. He'll never listen to this fucking thing, so it doesn't matter, and I shouldn't give him any shout-outs. Who cares? He's just a judge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Well, he's kind of a big deal, but he'll never listen to this podcast because he thinks he's above small business. But he is a Bayou Bangle. So our phone rings tonight.
Speaker 3:I know, so I was listening.
Speaker 2:Make it ring Della. Tell him that I just talked about Troy on my podcast and I am pissed that he went on somebody else's podcast before he ever went, he did.
Speaker 2:He did Alan. What a traitor, yeah, and you know what, even if I'm your best friend and you know what? He's coming into town and I got some great tickets. We're going to the Braves and a lot of us are going to the suite. You know where he's going? I hope in the nosebleeds he is. I'm putting him way up there in the third deck now because he pissed me off. I can't believe he went on somebody else's podcast before mine.
Speaker 1:He's probably still celebrating the national championship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the football one, I mean the double championship football, but they also just recently won baseball, which is, yes, he is definitely still celebrating that one, because that counts, it does, it does. It was actually a good one If you didn't watch that.
Speaker 3:I didn't. No, the College World Series was great, though it was oh, Coastal Carolina. I am a huge fan of that too Well, oregon State, I mean. The fact that a rainy state has a three-time national champion and they made it deep again is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:I tell you, college baseball is a lot of fun because you get to see the true. You see true passion, which is again back to business. Let's talk about this because it'll all tie back True passion. You get to see true fallibility. I mean these guys. I mean I watched a guy drop a fly ball that no pro leaguer would have ever done, but it happened and it let a guy come in. Another guy lost. He came in for what would have been an amazing catch in any level. He missed it. His team got bounced Arkansas and he is sitting out there inconsolable in right field, wouldn't even come off the field. They had to go out and get him.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you see that and everybody, especially in today's jaded world, we're all like, well, I can't believe he's doing that. I can't believe this guy's ripping his chest off and showing passion and showing experience and showing excitement. And then this kid is just absolutely crushed and people are out there just hating. I'm like, oh God, I love you haters, because welcome to small business. We got tons of haters and we never get a chance to plant the flag and go God, we just ripped off our shirt and go we're the best ever. We just don't get that. So here we are, running a small business. Nobody likes us.
Speaker 3:You've taken your shirt off a lot on social media. Well, I do. It's a different story.
Speaker 2:Back to Mike, shall we All right?
Speaker 1:What you're saying is true, though right, whether you're ripping off your shirt or you're crying in the outfield. That's the thing you can't teach. You can teach somebody skill. You can't give them the heart skill. You can't give them the heart you can't teach them heart right.
Speaker 3:So that's an important entrepreneur skill. Yeah, you hire for heart. In my opinion, hire, yeah, hire for that character and teach them the skills.
Speaker 2:Starting that business, though you got to have it and then I think that passion that I watched with these kids, especially in the college world series, was so much fun. It's just different than the major league baseball. You know, I'm a big Braves fan, tigers fan, detroit and Atlanta, but these guys are at the pinnacle. And so in small business we're not at the pinnacle. We're the small businesses which, according to the US Census, it's US Bureau, it's 50 million and below I'll take that, I'll take 50. Can I get 50? Yeah, I'm a tenth of that.
Speaker 3:Talk about your book a little bit Dumb.
Speaker 1:Well, I got three books, but I'll talk about this one.
Speaker 2:I'm super bored, right Is that your favorite one Alan, you just assumed he had one, because you're sitting with guys who just had one.
Speaker 1:I just got one, so this was the first one, right, don't Be a Dumb Business Owner was the first one, and it's actually the foundation of my program called the Clear Path to Cash. It's eight techniques to maximizing cash in a business, and it's written from a business owner's point of view, right. Even though I teach bankers and I work with accountants, that's written from my point of view on how we actually did it. Every time you read a textbook, it's about somebody's theory and concept and this type of stuff. This is actually what happened, right. It's stories that kind of back it up. So you're teaching a principle through your experience. Yeah, exactly right, but there's some math to it and, like I said earlier, I didn't understand math until I was a state trooper.
Speaker 1:People are going what does that mean? I still don't know what that means, but okay, so check this out right In high school college. I've got an MBA from Baylor University here in Texas. You might have heard of them Sick and Bears, right.
Speaker 2:Hey Sick and Bears, that's where my son's going law school. Is it really Very exciting?
Speaker 1:yep, Sick and Bears, right on, right on. So here's what I didn't do. I wasn't that great at math in school, it just wasn't clicking. They sent me to a school as a state trooper, to this thing called Accident Reconstruction School, where they actually teach you either calculus or trigonometry or geometry to be able to calculate people's speed based on the evidence on the roadway right. I mean, how far somebody's skid, how slick the surface is. Hey, if they go down into a ditch and then launch and then take off into the air, what the ramp angle is, you know, rise over run. As soon as they started talking to me about math in those terms, everything made sense. So I took what I learned from being a trooper and started going. Oh well, when I do this in business, these are the actions that represent X or Y or whatever it is. If you can connect it to something real that you do every single day, math comes to life.
Speaker 2:You know that amen to that. I think that's where we're really failing people in school. You know we've talked about this before. Actually, we've been doing this podcast for three and a half years, alan. That's a lot of math. That's a lot of math. But we'll go back to what we talked about Trade schools. I mean not against it, it you know, while I've got a son in law school, um, he was not built for the trades, uh. But look back on it. I think if it was really put upon me, I probably would have gone that way, because you learn a lot of applied mathematics when I worked in the machine shop and, um, a lot of stuff. But it made it made engineering a lot more tangible and real. So when I was in school doing the theoretical stuff, I knew what it was like to machine or to put together a 120 circuit or a 240 circuit in electrical.
Speaker 3:All right, math is boring. So, mike, you're a state trooper. Come on, we've got to get one good story. What's the dumbest thing you ever saw out there? The dumbest excuse that you had somebody give you, or the dumbest thing they ever did with a car?
Speaker 1:all right, the dumbest thing about now. Is it the dumbest? Should I do the dumbest or should I do the most exciting? Yeah, most exciting. Let's do two, one of each. Oh, okay, cool, yep, all right, I'll start with the most exciting right, because this is one that I thought I was going to get into a lot of legal trouble for.
Speaker 1:Starting off good, yeah, so I'm working an overtime project and because, again, we didn't make that much money, so I volunteer for overtime projects. Which is, you know, I'm sitting there watching a construction site and somebody comes through and barrels through the barricades and you know, kind of it's just the rubber ones, right and he just knocks it over, goes in and out. I'm like shit, he could kill somebody. So I pull him over. He's drunk Whoa, go figure, drunk, right, so you got to. So I take, take him into the headquarters. Right, I take him to the highway patrol headquarters in St Louis County.
Speaker 1:At the time you don't put people in jail for DWI, right, you don't put people in jail, you actually just let them go after you take the breathalyzer test and all that type of stuff. This person didn't have anybody to call. It's three o'clock in the morning, he didn't have anybody to call. So for an hour I'm sitting there waiting for somebody to come pick this person up. I have to be there until they're released. Well, finally my sergeant goes hey, just take him home. So I put him in the patrol car, not under arrest. I'm just going to drive this person home and as I go across the exit ramp and start to get down the highway. We're on, you know, kind of the ramp coming down to the highway they go oh, I'm going to throw up, and I'm going not my patrol car right, because I take my patrol car home, you're not doing that.
Speaker 1:You're not throwing up in my patrol car.
Speaker 2:I don't care if it's your patrol car. No, you do not. That's a hard. No, you do not throw up son.
Speaker 1:No. So I slam on the brakes, pull over to the shoulder and I got these big blue shop towels right In the back and I opened the door. I reach across them, open the door, push him out right. Just push him out the door so he gets out there, cause I have to clean it up If not. Well, I made the fatal error. We had this thing called an extender in the trunk, right. So every time a police officer gets out of the car, there's this little switch that you flip and it turns on the extender. Other than that, you get all this squeal and feedback inside the car with too many radios going at once. I didn't hit that switch. So I get out of the car, open up the trunk and I'm trying to get the shop towels to go around and hand them, you know, so they can wipe their face off.
Speaker 1:And guess what? Another car comes by, slams on his brakes, slides by. My car stops in front of me. It's a smaller car with a hatchback and two Rottweilers in the back just going crazy. These two dogs are just going crazy.
Speaker 1:So I've got a person that's drunk puking out the side of a patrol car. Now I got this other person that jumps out of their car with two barking dogs coming back at me. I go, oh, wait a second. So the person runs up to me and goes hey, you got to help me. It's a bloodbath at my house. And I look at his hands. There's cuts all over his hands and there's, like you know, blood all over him. I said, hey, hey, hey, what do you mean? He goes, my wife, somebody's got to go help my wife right now. I asked him for his ID. He pulls out his wallet and there's bills this thick in his wallet just absolutely crazy amounts of money inside this wallet Two inches thick. Yeah, two, three, whatever the fit, right. So there's so much money in here that I'm afraid to touch the wallet. I don't want to get involved with that. I'm like, hey, just take your license out for me. So he takes his license out, I grab it and I put it in my pocket because he's acting so erratic and crazy and I don't know. Again, his hands are cut up and he's just said his shirt, right. So I'm like, hey, I'm going to pat you down for a second. No, no, I got to go. So I just want to make sure that your wife's OK, I'm going to call it in. Have somebody go check on her. I just want to make sure that you and I are OK here. So I turn him around, have him put his hands on the back of his car and as he does that he spins and we're in a fight. Remember, I still got some regular person back behind me puking out the side of the patrol car.
Speaker 1:We end up kind of tussling over towards the barricade. There's a barricade where the outer road is and a fence. You guys have seen that. So you got the exit ramp. Then there's some concrete and a fence. We're against this fence and I see this guy starting to look at my weapon, my gun. Right, he's looking down, looking down, looking down. I'm saying, oh no, we're going to that now. So I don't have a radio because, remember, I didn't flip that switch. I didn't flip the switch. So I can't call anybody. You're on your own, on my own. So I just rear back and just punch him. Pow, just punch him, and I go back to the car, flip the switch. He jumps in his car and takes off. So now I've got the person's ID and all that, but now I think I've got In your pocket.
Speaker 1:I got this murderer right, I think I got a murderer Right. Right, that's what I would think who went and grabbed all this cash and he's going to be on the run. But he felt bad all of a sudden and wanted to make sure his wife was okay. Well, I get back in the car. I still got the person puking in the back and pull them back inside the car. I say, hey, you okay. And he goes Go get that son of a bitch. I said buckle up. He buckled up and off, he went. All right. So there's where I've committed a violation of general order. Right, general order is like the rules. You don't get into a pursuit with a civilian in the car.
Speaker 2:Happens in the movies, I'd sign off on it. I'd say, go get him. Go get him Money. Mike, we're going to go take somebody down Yeehaw.
Speaker 1:Hey, six lanes, right, we're going across six lanes, just six lanes. He's weaving out of traffic. He's got so much stuff in the car he's throwing it out the window. I mean, there's like a garden gnome. There's all kinds of just crazy stuff coming out. I'm dodging things behind him as we're going, you know, a hundred plus mile an hour down the interstate. It's three in the morning, there's not a lot of people, but one of the people hits the garden dome, blows their tire and they kind of go off on the side of the road and I'm finally getting all the people around to shut down the interstate. Right, we're shutting down the interstate. Cops are coming down backwards on the ramps to shut everything down and we get them stopped, not in on the shoulder, we get them stopped in lane three of six. Oh my God, it just stops and sits.
Speaker 1:And now, now, now, it's like going, okay, well, this might be. You know, it's a standoff with this guy who, I think, killed his wife. We don't know what's going to happen next. And there's these two big dogs inside the car just going nuts. Right, oh my God. Yeah, we get a team together, we go up. You know, three on one side, three on another side of the car. I open the car door, pull this guy out and pull him out and shut it so the dogs don't get out Right. So I got this guy on the ground. I love how we laugh.
Speaker 2:I love how you kind of chuckled Holy shit. I'd be like, oh, I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 1:The person that's in the car, I say, hey, whenever this car stops, you just go and run, just run to the side. I'll find you later. Just go run. So that's what they did. So we finally get this person to cuss. I got him on the side. We're trying to clean it up. Got a tow truck coming to get the car. I mean trying to figure out what to do with the dogs.
Speaker 1:And he's a veteran. Right, he's a veteran. He'd been out for I don't know five, 10 years, something like that. But he'd spent the last three years in prison for armed robbery. And he had just gotten out and his wife wasn't talking to him. Right, because we went to his wife's house and she goes no, I won't let him in the house, he's crazy. So wouldn't let him in the house. He all of a sudden goes nuts and wants to go somewhere and do something else. Well, I'm asking you know why the hands? Why are you? What's wrong with your hands? You know, because I don't have to take him to the VA hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. And he says you see that? Uh, you ever seen those on the side of the road, those black velvet paintings like dogs, playing cards and Elvis yeah, he had like three or four of these in the car Poker painters.
Speaker 2:What is it? I call them dog poker painters.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 3:He got two Rottweilers and a bunch of velvet paintings in the car and bloody hands. All right, that's funny.
Speaker 1:He got two Rottweilers and a bunch of velvet paintings in the car and bloody hands and Elvis, yeah, and he said one of them stunk so bad he couldn't stand it. He took a knife in the car while he was driving and he was cutting up this thing and throwing it out the window and he cut up his hands while he was doing it. That's really what happened. He had the money because he didn't have a bank account because he'd been in jail for so long. He just took any cash that he made with cash and check and that's why I had all the money. So there was no murder. There's no anything. He just had a psychotic break, right, and he'd help. That's a crazy story, right, because then I get called yeah.
Speaker 1:Then I get called in front of the captain and everybody else and have to explain all this.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's go back. So the original DUI guy I'll bet you he's never driven drunk, ever, ever again. Yeah, there's no way. Talk about scared straight after that. I'd be like dude, I ain't drinking and driving ever again.
Speaker 1:Don't you think he's also telling this story?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he is. He is telling the story, but he's like I'm not doing that ever again because I'm not an adrenaline junkie. I just was drunk one night, probably had too many pops at the bar, blew it and oh my God, he's probably right now on another podcast.
Speaker 3:There's three and a half million podcasts. He's telling that story.
Speaker 2:You know this one actually. I know the podcast. This story should have been on no-transcript. I feel like sometimes some of my days have been like that. I think every day is like that for you. It really is. I swear to God, I got Rottweilers I have. Today, I saw Chow Chow, I've seen, I've got I can't name enough dogs. How about, every time you walk up to a house, the next thing you know, as soon as you open the door, a big puff of weed comes out. You're like, yeah, this is going to be a good estimate. Okay, let's, what are we looking at today in the house? Okay, this is gonna be fun, all right. So, mike, tell us how to make some more money. Find the cash. What can you do to help us all, cause we're coming to the end?
Speaker 1:All right. So the first thing you gotta do is you gotta look at your business from two different directions, right, and I call it vertical and horizontal, and you're like, what does that mean? Well, vertical things are called cash generating activities. It starts with sales, and you keep subtracting things out until they get to profit. That's vertical. It's easy to follow.
Speaker 1:I sold this much, I spent this much, and this is what's left over. The other part of that, though, is the timing of it. How long does it take for this to happen? Just because I recorded a sale, just because I recorded an expense, doesn't mean I paid the bill or got the money from the sale, so there's a horizontal piece that goes with it at the same time. So what I did was I created a calculation set and a visual that goes with it, called mining your business for hidden cash, and, by plugging in nine numbers off the income statement and balance sheet, I can tell you where your biggest problem is in your company in minutes, right, and tell you exactly where it is to go find hidden cash, and I found over $150 million worth for clients in the past three years. Good, Lord.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's not increasing sales, because I think this is where Chris and I differ. He goes oh revenue, you got to do revenue, revenue, revenue. Revenue to me is just a measurement of how much work you did. Gross profit is where you want to focus. Gross profit is the only cash you can get to spend on your operating expenses or your net profit.
Speaker 2:I will agree there. I was just saying I was explaining to him. Is that is that? I mean you can, cash is king, but you can't save yourself down to the bottom and you've got to keep growing that engine as long as your profit's good. But profit, especially in my world, is so hard to get. It's a home services is a tough net, you know, I actually just got done talking with some other home service companies. But here's the cool thing we all think everybody else is killing it.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, that guy's killing it. Oh, oh, he's HVAC. He's killing it, which is, by the way, what I said. This HVAC guy here in Atlanta, he's the third biggest in Atlanta. I said well, I know you're killing it, he goes. Well, what are your, what's your net? And we shared our nets and at the end of the day, man, none of us are over 10 percent. It's just not what it is. He goes, no, he goes. What do you think I'm doing? He goes, no, he goes.
Speaker 2:If I had to do it all over again, I said if I had to do it all over again, I'd start an HVAC business. He goes, he said. He said I'm starting to figure out how to start a handyman business. I'm like don't do that, brother. I said I already figured that thing out. This sucks. No, it doesn't, but it's still. That's the thing. The grass is always greener, right, you've heard that phrase and it's so trite, but the proof of the pudding is the same story In home services, which is a great business, it's still a very hard business, and if you're in commercial real estate, where they're truly just killing it, which I know you are, alan.
Speaker 3:You're killing it. That's why I'm zooming in from my yacht.
Speaker 2:That's right, but that's the problem. And so what he'll talk about is that yeah, but it's feast or famine for me, right? I can go six, seven, eight months before I get a transaction and a paycheck. I'm like, oh no, I get a paycheck every two weeks.
Speaker 3:It's a little one, but it's there. So, Mike, I like how you're talking about this, Mike, without telling people how the sausage is made. What are? Where are some of these areas where you're looking for the hidden cash?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I'll just tell you the six calculations. It's sales to assets ratio, and everybody's like what? I've never done a sales to assets ratio. What that tells you is how much should you be generating with your stuff? Right, you're already currently doing something. So if you're doing that, compared to what the industry average is for sales to assets ratio, that's how everybody else is generating assets with the same thing. Then it's your gross profit percentage, right? How are you doing compared to your goals? Or everybody else? Net profit the same way. So that's pretty standard.
Speaker 1:That's not secret sauce or anything like that. The other is just inventory. How much inventory do you need to keep up with sales? Most people go in and just kind of guess. They're like, oh, give me 10 of these and 15 of these and 25 of those. Well, there's an actual formula that you use to determine how much you need to just keep up with your sales value. You don't need more than that. You don't need less, because you'll run out, but you need the right amount Then A-R-A-P. So this isn't a secret sauce, it's just put in a visual way where you instantly see where you need to spend your time.
Speaker 2:Alan, Wow, that was insightful.
Speaker 1:Alan Great great feedback that was great feedback wow, thank you.
Speaker 2:You know what?
Speaker 3:mike went well. I brought three. No, after three and a half years and you know, chris hardly ever lets me talk and I'm just waiting for him to just jump all over that. I was going to talk about you a little bit more. I was because we really know I was. I use that much on this episode, did we have? You actually let me tell the whole Oprah story.
Speaker 2:I know I love that one, by the way. Finally, alan, get back to Mike, shall we? Mike? All right, we keep going, we do this stuff. So who are you engaging with? Who are your clients? Who are you working with mostly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean mostly right now I'm working with advisors, so accountants, bookkeepers, fractional CFOs but I also work with business owners. I mean early on I just only worked with business owners and then I decided that I could get better reach to more business owners if I went through their advisors, right so? But if you're a business owner, I mean there's a person that licensed my book called the seven minute conversation that's how to analyze your financial statements and seminars, or lefts. One person licensed it to make a contractor addition. So if you're a contractor things like that we've got specialists in my inside my community for that home services company I've got I work with. You know, one of the largest private first and, uh, you know clear pat the cash professionals in the country out of Idaho, rathdrum, idaho, of all places. She's focuses and specializes on home services companies, even has a podcast about it.
Speaker 2:Ooh, look at her Idaho, though. But there's not that many homes out there in Idaho. I've got to talk to this girl because I've got 6.2 million right here in Atlanta. We've got plenty of homes to work on. But no, I love that. It's funny because I joke. Let me give you guys the inside joke. So in my mastermind group that I'm part of you guys all know about this, maybe you don't one of the guys in my group has sold, and sold to a big, large private equity. They're rolling it up and he says, hey, I was the biggest, I was the third biggest in Atlanta, and I just found somebody who is 15x me in utah, utah, this is garage stores, bro. And you're like, I didn't know there were that many homes in utah and you guys know this lady has dominated the market, and that's the thing.
Speaker 2:I don't care about idaho, because you look it up, not a lot of people are a lot of people. Listen to this thing are all across the us, everywhere, everywhere, from missouri to to California. You're in Texas, we're up in North Carolina, new Jersey, new York. We got a lot of people in Illinois listening. It's just interesting when you think about that, because listen, man, it all kind of goes around, comes back together. So you're working on Profit, working on the contractor edition. How do we find that contractor edition?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's on Amazon. It's a it's one of my CPCPs clear path to cash professionals. His name is Larry Weinstein. He's the cashflow cowboy out of Houston, texas.
Speaker 2:Cashflow cowboy, that's what he calls himself.
Speaker 1:Now I was thinking Floyd. I get it, it's the. That's what he calls himself. Now I was thinking Floyd.
Speaker 2:I get it. It's the bourbon. It is too. All right, Dude, this has been awesome. Man, Mike, this has been cool stuff. How does everybody find you? Let's go get back to the normal. We talked about one of the books. You got three. How does?
Speaker 1:everybody find all of your ideas. Best way to find me is cashflowmikecom, right, cashflowmikecom, and I'll tell you what. Right underneath, and when you ask me, my perfect customer it's the company that's pre-CFO. You're not quite big enough to have your own CFO on staff, but you still need help, right? So that's generally 15 million or less, I guess. I don't know what the number is, but if we put a number on it, that Any business, because I teach agnostically, which means it works for all industries and all businesses. But right now, if you go to my website, cashflowmikecom, underneath the header video, right, right, the big thing says hey, I'm cashflow. Mike is a free course and it's on the seven minute conversation. It's a free video course. You get a spreadsheet. You get the uh, the digital copy of the book, the seven minute conversation. You get a spreadsheet. You get the digital copy of the book, the seven-minute conversation. You get all that for the low, low cost of an email address.
Speaker 2:That's all you get there. You go Put it in man, go check it out. Cashflow Mike, spam me because I love that. I talk about this. All the time is that I just want your email. But you know why? Because we stay top of mind that way, man, and this stuff sounds really good stuff that you want to be top of mind with, right yeah?
Speaker 3:no, yeah, I love that whole niche of pre-CFO because there's a lot of companies out there who they really need a CFO and they actually can't afford to not have one. They think they can't afford to have one, but they can't afford to not have one, and you're the perfect bridge to that.
Speaker 2:And you don't know when you know and that's a great point that we've talked about it's like well, no, I'm not big enough to have a CFO. Well, let's talk about this fractional CFO. And they go find somebody and this person drops a huge number on them because they're not being truthful with who they are and what they're doing. And this one this gives you a great diagnostic of where you're at. You just trash all fractional CFOs. No, I didn't. I'm actually trashing people like me in small business. And you're like you know, dude, I went and get that. Next thing, you know, I'm going to grab somebody who was a fractional CFO for a Fortune 200 company. I can't afford those rates and I'm not ready to move enough money around to really move the needle. Use this one as a self-diagnostic. Go, take a look and then figure out your path. That's where I'm at, alan. Am I good You're?
Speaker 3:good, all right. Thank you, alan. The free seven-minute conversation that's what they get on the website, right? That's what we get.
Speaker 1:And I'll tell you what you just talked about somebody doing a big number on you, like dropping a big number, not going to do that. Because if you're not afraid to do some self-help, right, use my video courses, use my stuff. If you're not afraid to come to some live coaching and get my help, ask me questions and get my help, but in a group setting, right, you don't have to say your company name or anything like that, but in a group setting, I need some help. Here's what's happening If you're willing to do those two things, I've got courses, live coaching and a software app that does all this for you for about 249 a month.
Speaker 2:249 beats 4 000 a month. Yeah, so there you go. For 250 bucks a month, you get some help.
Speaker 3:Good math, chris you like that yeah?
Speaker 2:we've been talking about numbers. I actually just had somebody throw that at me. I'm like, well, do I mean? So I won't go into that guy's story, cause we're coming to the end. Guys, go check this thing out. It's definitely worth checking out. I mean, what's an email worth? Right? Guys, go check it out, let's figure it out. Figure out if that's for you. I think it sounds awesome. Now we're going, let's try it. All right, here we go. What's a book you would recommend to our audience that you didn't write?
Speaker 1:See, Good one Gotcha. Uh-oh, you know I'm still a fan and this is back from when I went to. You know I was at Baylor, right? Master's degree in Baylor. I still think Good to Great is a good one to start with. Yeah, I agree, I mean, it's still the classic. It talks about where I take away from it is the concept of putting the right people on the bus. And, Alan, you said it right, you hire for heart, right. If I can find the right person, the right fit, I'll create the job for that person right and figure out where we're going. It's not about the job description first. Unless you're a carpenter, I need you to be able to do carpentry stuff, but mostly I hire for heart and build the job around them. I don't get stuck to the job description I wrote five years ago.
Speaker 2:My biggest part from that one is the flywheel. It's just guys running a business. You're not going to be an influencer overnight, and definitely with Ellen and I's.
Speaker 2:Look, there's no reason we're going to be on tv anytime so we will not be reality tv, you're not going to be an influencer, you're not going to make a million dollars tomorrow you're going to hear all these stories. It's all bullshit. Right, there's a. It's point. One point zero, zero, zero, one percent. So it's good to great. Is a fly wheel effect? Right, you just got every day. Get up, solve a problem, make it happen, keep going, keep moving forward. So that's right, that's one of the biggest ones for me. On that one. All right, let's keep going. So let's go. What's the favorite feature of your house? Because I'm looking at some parts I like right now all right.
Speaker 1:What? This is the office? Matter of fact, it's getting ready. This whole thing is getting ready to be taken out. We're doing built-ins. This is to become a speakeasy office. I've got my bourbon back there. A whole wall of it. Now you cheers to that.
Speaker 3:That's why I'm looking at your bourbon Speakeasy in your own house. How's that going to work? Is it going to be like a hidden?
Speaker 1:door to get in. I won't tell Courtney where it is.
Speaker 2:Okay, solid Brother, we're coming. We're in San Antonio, alan, and I get an invite.
Speaker 3:I love Texas, I love San Antonio.
Speaker 2:I have not been.
Speaker 3:Oh it's a great town, great golf there too, great food. Golf food is amazing.
Speaker 1:Make sure you look me up if y'all come. All right, we're doing it All right.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we're kind of very passionate about we've talked about customer service, but we're kind of working our way into it this way. But Alan and I are kind of customer service freaks. We're kind of crazy about this. What's a customer service pet peeve of yours? When you're out there and you're the customer?
Speaker 1:When I'm the customer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so I'm receiving it, yeah Well you've got a restaurant business, which is an easy pick, but pick something different.
Speaker 1:All right, so I'm not giving customer service.
Speaker 3:Pick something different, All right so I'm not giving customer service. No, you're receiving customer service and it drives you nuts and it just absolutely pisses you right the F off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's vague, being too vague with me. What I mean by that is if I ask a question and you can't answer it, you don't know the answer, you can't do it. I mean, I get really frustrated with like going oh, why don't you know this? This is part of your job, right? I don't say that to them. I mean they should know what their job is.
Speaker 2:This is a great one because there are two schools of thought. It was either easier to sell in the 1960s and 70s or it's easier to sell now. If it's easier. In the 60s and 70s you didn't know the cars you were up against. So when somebody came in I could spew a whole line of bullshit and you'd have no idea. But you might buy the car because I was full of shit. Today, if you come in and you ask me about this car and I spew a whole line of bullshit and you're like but the Internet said it's this, this and this and this and that. But if you don't know your subject matter, when somebody comes to you and you're just a sales guy trying to spew shit, you're gone, man, you're gone. So vague does not win, being a bullshitter it does not win.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think what you're saying is somebody trying to pretend like they know what they're talking about, as opposed to just owning. Hey, you know what they're talking about, as opposed to just owning. Hey, you know what. That's a really good question. Let me find out and get back to you. You would have tolerance for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he called it right with bullshit right. Thank you, alan.
Speaker 3:Bullshit no, I mean, but I mean, come on, mike, I thought you were on my team.
Speaker 1:Well I am, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah, I would rather somebody say I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't get it, or rather than dance around and try to lead me down a path, today's buyer is educated, right, they just are right. So you got to be prepared to talk to an educated buyer.
Speaker 2:every single time Agreed. All right, let's talk about this one. I love working on homes. That's why I got in this business. I'm a handyman, a reconstruction guy, do a lot of remodeling. Give us a DIY nightmare story.
Speaker 1:I'm still living it All right. So Courtney asked me to do a what's that wall called, the wall thing where you, I don't know, you don't even know what it's called, but you make like squares out of it. So it looks like a.
Speaker 2:So you're doing your own trim on your wall in your dining room or something like an accent wall accent wall, all right.
Speaker 1:so she wants an accent wall in in the bedroom, all right, I'm like, oh, I can do that, so I do it. It everything's perfect, except for the fact I didn't really measure correctly, uh, because I put up some plywood as kind of the base, right, but some really what's? That's that one-eighth, or I don't know? You guys know all this stuff I got it All right, so I got that.
Speaker 1:And then I got the one by fours I think it's one by fours and we kind of cut those into squares and I did perfect math on the squares. Everything is perfect as far as she didn't want partial squares, she wanted full squares. So I did perfect math there. What I didn't do was adjust for the seams of the plywood behind it. All right, so I got plywood stack like this. What the professional would have done is make sure that the one by four covered that seam and I wouldn't have the problem. Guess what Mike has now? Mike has like a line across where it's separated because he didn't cover it and hide it like a normal pie.
Speaker 2:Mud it right. Well, you know what Mike's going to have to tell Courtney. That's called the love line. Baby, that's a love line, so you could use that. It's called character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just said. You know, every time we have all the activities, that thing pops open. I've tried, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried to caulk it, you know it's a love line.
Speaker 2:There you go. I love DIY. You know what? That's actually one of my favorite stories. There are so many times I had that one and I did not use my line, um, so, yes, I've had a lot of other ones, but that's a good one. Guys, go figure it out. Mike, how can we all find you?
Speaker 1:again, cashflowmikecom. Go get that free course and learn more about your business in seven minutes than you knew all year.
Speaker 2:All right, man, we've got to keep making it happen. Every week, every day, every hour, every morning, get up, solve a problem, come figure this thing out. Let's go make it happen.
Speaker 3:We've got to get out of here and go, make it happen.
Speaker 2:Cheers everybody. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari. Listening to this episode of the Small Business Safari. Remember your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in a wild world of small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day.
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