Unscramble The Egg And Save Your Sanity | Marcia Riner

Most small business owners say they want to scale—but what they really want is relief. Less chaos, more profit, and a business that doesn't depend on them every minute of every day.

Summary

Marcia Riner, business growth strategist, profitability expert, and host of Profit With A Plan, joins Chris and Alan to break down what it really takes to grow a business without burning out. Drawing inspiration from an unexpected source—the world-class customer experience at The Masters—Marcia explains how consistent systems, brand standards, and operational excellence allow businesses to charge premium prices and create loyal customers.

The conversation dives into one of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs: becoming the bottleneck in their own company. Marcia shares practical strategies for identifying where growth has stalled, delegating responsibilities, documenting processes, and creating a business that can thrive without constant owner involvement.

We also explore the role of AI in small business, from improving SOPs and scheduling to increasing margins and operational efficiency. Finally, Marcia explains what makes a business truly valuable and how owners can build a profitable company they enjoy today while preparing for a successful future exit.

Whether you're running a home service company, professional practice, or growing local business, this episode delivers actionable insights to help you scale smarter.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari

💡 GOLD NUGGETS 

•  Why The Masters provides a blueprint for customer experience and brand excellence 
•  How premium experiences justify premium pricing 
•  The hidden ways founders become growth bottlenecks 
•  Simple steps to delegate and reclaim your time 
•  Using AI to improve operations, efficiency, and profitability 
•  Building systems that make your business owner-independent 
•  What buyers look for when valuing a business 

🔗 Guest Links

•  Website: https://profitbooster.biz
•  Podcast: Profit With A Plan 
•  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marciariner
• www.infiniteprofitconsulting.com

🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari

•  Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast 
•  LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia
•  Website | https://chrislalomia.com

Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!

Transcript

Unscrambling The Egg Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Decided that because, you know, in a full-time role, I mean, I could be $180,000 a year for the give me a side eye.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

What was that? Right? Well, you're you're nudging that number and just what is that position? I've seen that on a corporate chart. You know, the director of of uh kick curse in the ass, unscrambling the the egg. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Unscrambling the egg. That's fantastic. I think that's my new, that's my new, you know, no longer business growth strategist, but unscrambling the egg er. Unscrambling the egg. Um, you gotta have the er on the end. That's right. Or the is the is on the end, right? Unscrambling the egg is. Um, but you know, when you think about it, so my role very closely aligns, but not completely, totally aligns with a CFO. So a CFO is seeing the strategy, making the change, but to most often today's CFOs are more in the controller role and the the accounting space.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Not so much idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

So they're so they're dealing with they're dealing too much with the numbers and they're missing the big picture of the company.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

But um, but yeah, so um, yeah, driver of growth is the unscrambler of the egg or egg is that might be that might be the I think that's the title of this podcast. Marcia Reiner, the unscrambler. Unscramble your eggs. Unscramble your eggs. You know, no, let's not do that. Let's go with eggest. I think eggest is that. Yeah, because we want it something to declusive. Egg her, that's bad. Egg him, worse, no. No, we're with egg her. I welcome the mind of Chris. What? Where are we? Okay, back to the wood. All right.

Welcome To Small Business Safari

SPEAKER_03 1:54

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 extent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there, and I want to help you traverse to 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.

The Masters As A Brand Model

SPEAKER_03 2:29

It's all about people, Alan. You know that. Come on, everybody. Oh my god, are you guys in the truck? Are you living like stock orbit? It's time, baby. It's time to get out there and let's have some fun with this. Let's have a good time figuring out how we can get better at business. But before we do that, Alan, that's right. Here in Atlanta, we have a little tradition, like in none other, that is just a mere two and a half hours away from us. And that's called the Masters. And that's at Augusta National. You want to talk about a brand. What a brand they have built. It is just amazing what they have done and how they have built that and cultivated that, where they've embraced the social media aspects now and everything else. We're going to talk about what we have as a business. Look at back what they had as a business and just an idea of building out a beautiful course and a nursery in very, a very, very U-color town. It was not anywhere that anybody would really want to go to. And now they have in this incredible tournament that happens every year. The whole the whole town works around that tournament, and then the whole world watches it. And we just had Rory McElroy win for the second time, and they were talking about the global impact he had of being the master champion back-to-back, being the fourth person in the world to ever do it. Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Well, and what's so amazing to me about the brand, when you talk about it, I hadn't really thought about it that way, but they hold their guests to high expectations, but not higher than they hold themselves. The expectations that they have for themselves are just absolutely elite. And when you come in, you are treated as a guest and a patron. Yeah, and you you have an experience like you do not have in any other sporting event, and they don't take advantage of you financially in any way, even though my buddy just got his lottery ticket punched and went to the Saturday round. He spent 1700 bucks in the merchandise shop. Know it. I know, but he spent a buck and a half on a pimento cheese sandwich of five dollars for a beer. And it's it's just it's an experience like none none other. I mean, when you talk about your Ritz Carlton experiences over the years, I have it's it's like that.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

And that's exactly where I was going with that brand. Why would they build that brand? It's because of the lore of the people who've been there. And you, you and I both been there, and I've been there now five times, and I really don't need to go back because in my head and the lore, and I just had uh our IT uh professional who's been on the podcast go for the first time ever, and I pumped it up so high to him. I said, Did I pump it up high enough? He goes, It even exceeded that. I said, I know because of everything we just talked about. They call them patrons. You can put a chair down, nobody ever moves your chair. You go through the food line faster than you uh go through anything. I mean, it is amazing the efficiency and what they do and the decorum, the civility, and the experience. When you walk away, it is you're you're just blown away with the magnificent. You don't even have to like golf. No, not at all. So I know we've drummed on and on to start out this podcast, but I want to talk about that because I thought okay. Do you want me to continue? No, we gotta get going, guys. We got a great one today. Uh, and I will tell you that um admittedly, I didn't do my research until yesterday. And when I did, I realized that seriously got thank you. I do like to fly off the cup. And I went, uh-oh, we got a professional. We thought we've been doing this for a while, everybody. Four and a half years of podcasting. But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have Marcia Ryan here. She's a business growth specialist, but she is a master podcaster, been doing it for over seven years. Actually, was giving us advice before we got started. Like, guys, what do you do in that float? Why about that? Hey, you can still be funny, but man, you guys gotta have better sound. Here, let me fix this for you. So, Marcia, welcome to the show. Thank you. You've already made us better.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Thanks so much. And I'm sitting here going, the masters, yeah, let's talk about that. Um, but yeah, it was uh we here in Vegas, it was it was on the news here in Vegas. Um, and it was talking about the fact that you go here anywhere, even the casinos now are. I mean, not to shoot people away from Vegas, but even the casinos are very expensive now. It used to be used to get like free drinks and you know, $6.99 steak and lobster at the buffet, and now it's like ridiculous. And they were talking about the same things that you did, that the pricing there for, you know, you can get a $5 beer and a sandwich or your pimento sandwich, you know, and it's very cost effective to be in there. And I thought the greatest thing that they that they talked about with the masters was that there is no cell phones, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

So no cell phones. And my my friend talked about that after going. I I did the the uh download with him after he went. He goes, it was weird just leaving your cell phone behind. He goes, but a little while, he goes, it was awesome. You were just so engaged.

Turning Experience Into Better Pricing

SPEAKER_00 7:19

That's it. You wanna when we think about our own businesses, and we can, you know, draft this in that direction. Um, what is the customer experience, right? What do they experience when they come to your HVAC, your plumbing company, your your roofing company? What's the experience that that customer has by working with you? We all know that that there are significant amounts of choices that the consumer has these days. And when they come to you, hopefully it's not an emergency service only, but when they come to you, what is the experience that that customer has? Now, that's not what we designed talking about today, but I I put that back to you. How can we make a master's experience for your customers? And then when you have that master's experience, can you charge that $1,700 for stuff? Or are you charging the $5 for a beer, right? You know, we can then decide how we price our offer because we've created this experience that that um separates you from Joe Schmo down the way.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Better said than I could have said it. And that's exactly where I was going. Yes, that was a great lead-in. Uh Barcia had no idea we were going to wrap into the masters, but I'm like, oh yeah, I'm holding this one out until we get on the uh errors.

Meet Marcia Plus Bourbon Talk

SPEAKER_03 8:48

So, Garcia, in a little bit, uh maybe just kind of your main job. We talk about having a number of different jobs. We one of the podcasts we talked about, hey Chris, how many uh companies do you have? I said, Well, I had four. But uh, your main uh deal is helping people in business uh find profit opportunities, get out of that stall. Talk a little bit about what you do and how you help people.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, you know, um I'm a big thinker. Um, first of all, can I ask this big, huge looming question before I forget it? As you just took a sip of your bourbon, what do you drink?

SPEAKER_03 9:22

So today we're drinking Woodford Reserve. Today we're sponsored by Woodward Reserve, which Chris refers to as maintenance bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

That is a maintenance, which I think is a slap in Woodford's face.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

I know what but you know, it's so smooth. I'm I'm a I'm a bourbon. Um um I'm a rookie. Um, I've had a couple of friends teach me how to how to bourbon um really well. Uh, I don't necessarily like the rice so much, but you know, when we go in, so um I'm a Costco fan, and so Costco only releases it every once in a while. They're small batch bourbon, and I just bought a bottle on Saturday, so I haven't cracked it open yet. And for 20 bucks, it's a beautiful bourbon, and I'm like dang.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Uh-oh. So, guys, we've ended the podcast. I gotta, I'm gonna be back. I'm gone on my way to Costco, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Hang on a second, let me go grab the bottle, right?

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Um my gosh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Well, see, it's only it and it's only one o'clock my time here in California in California, uh in in Vegas, that it, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't logically, you know, crack open the bottle and think I was gonna do anything else.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

That that is part of it.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

I just say by every time I'm out there for the uh football, our our annual soiree to uh to to the trade raiders game. No, we come out for uh the NFL uh division weekend, uh so we can watch eight games. Uh but by one o'clock, yeah, I'm already uh well into the yeah, but this is working, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

You know, when you come out and socialize, you can you can drink, but yeah. So no, Woodford Reserve is very nice. So thank you. And that was my burning question that I was, you know, like that beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

I love that you asked that. We'll definitely take you through the whole run of it. So uh I would love to say I coined that phrase, but one of the guys that came on the podcast, um, we have uh sometimes we have people coming here into our uh studio, and this guy brought a bourbon and then he brought his maintenance bourbon. He goes, This is after you offer up the nice bourbon, you put the Woodford Reserve on second. That's his maintenance. But I well, that wasn't what he said, that's what I did because I'm big ball in it. I'm taunting it, Alan. Woodford reserve.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Woo! There's nothing wrong with it. It's it's nice, it's a nice bourbon. You know, I mean, it's the official. You know, I can drink yeah, I can drink 70, 80, 100 bottles, but then you know, after after the first glass, they kind of they don't taste the same. So I mean, you the went the Woodford will taste the same as they do after a glass or two. So yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

100% Woodford reserve. You're making bourbon. That maybe that'll be.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

All right, so

Fixing Flatlined Growth And Profit

SPEAKER_00 11:45

back to the question. What do I do?

SPEAKER_03 11:46

How do we make more money so we can buy more bourbon?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

That's well my gosh, right? Right. So we can so we can supply our our um our habits. Um, so okay, so what I do is I'm a I'm a thinker, I'm I'm a visionary. Um, once you give me a problem, I like accordion it out and then I collapse it back in. So I'm looking at at how things kind of kind of tinkering, right? My grandfather would take clocks apart and put them back together. Did they ever work again? I don't remember, but you know, it's like, so but business is like that for me. I want to take it apart. I want to see what are we doing, what are we striving for, and then how can I reverse engineer that? So that's the way my brain works. Um, but what I do in that nature is I'll come on with a client that is is flatlined, right? They're growing or they're not growing or they're having some sort of an issue that usually involves the revenue. It involves um maybe a process that they're doing, maybe something they're just they're working harder and they're not seeing as much in their pocket at the end of each month. And so that's when I come in and I kind of weed through and pull back the layers and go, oh, okay, I can see this. How can I now set it up for you to see it? And then what can we do logically that will help improve the the profitability of the company, which is um, you know, everybody's dream, right? We didn't get we we all didn't come into business to work 80 hours a week and you know be paid less than we were making in corporate or wherever and have another J O B. We want to have that lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah, also I would say uh no K-O-N, no kick in the nuts. You can spell it right.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Well, I wouldn't say that, but you know, if that's what you if that's what you say, have at it.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Now I got the impression looking at your uh at your website that you you swoop in when you got an entrepreneur whose business has taken off and they've kind of gotten to the point where they're maybe a little uh out over their skis. And and that that's the sense that I got. And I think a lot of times what what happens is you've got a solopreneur who is really good at what they do, and then it starts growing, but then you know, you start hiring people and you have to have a sales department, and then you've got to have HR, you've got to have all the different and they don't have that experience to have that sort of structure. And so you backfill the framework. Is am I am I close?

SPEAKER_00 14:24

That's absolutely one of the angles that that comes on. Um, you know, like I said, when we when we start our business, you know, we don't we didn't strive to have that J O B. We wanted freedom and lifestyle of it. But what happens is is we're all a bunch of control freaks, right? You know, so it's like, oh, I can I can I could do this better.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

What many of us are, yeah. You're a control freak, Chris. You need to listen.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yes. So so for those of you that aren't watching this and then are listening, uh, I'll just pointed to Chris. So um, but yeah, it's it's so that the control issue comes in often and have to be able to guide the owner-founder into letting go and stop being that bottleneck that they become in the business and try and get that flow going through. You know, when a pipe gets clogged, nothing works, right? So if you're in the way of your business, then you're clogging your business pipe. And we need to open that up in a way that allows you to do the things that only you as the founder creator uh can do. And sometimes that's not, you know, um swinging the hammer or or you know, doing the labor. It's sometimes it's it's it's sometimes it's vision, you know. Ah, where are we gonna go next month?

SPEAKER_03 15:47

You know, I think a lot of people say we're doing it, right? We oh, okay, you know what? I know I'm the bottleneck, but they really don't mean it. So how do you figure out if somebody's really ready to do this or not ready to do this?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

You know, I go through, I go through some questioning, some discovery, um, you know, figuring out where they are, what do they like to do? What can they do? What shouldn't they be doing, right? And then we kind of lay it all out in a map, right? You put it down and write it down on paper, you know, graft it out, however it is. You create kind of um a hierarchy of you at the top and who's underneath you and who's underneath them. And it's not in the VP and and you know, managers and you know, little people role, but it's in tasks. What are the things that absolutely have to be done in the business? And where do you belong in that chain? And where can you start to backfill people in that role? And again, not at senior vice president level, but at the worker level. A lot of people will start at their hierarchy and go, oh, I'm gonna hire my buddy and he's gonna be vice president of marketing. Nah, let's have him do the marketing first, right? Let's have him write the ads. Let's have him, you know, let's let's have him work his way up. You don't need a lot of yeah, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Cheat. You just don't get an SVP job with me, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Get to work. You you've got a tricky position though. Somebody recognizes they need help and then they pay you to basically tell them that they're the problem.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

I do it gently most of the time. Um, like just the other day, I had to uh wrangle in one of my clients. Um she was going down, she was she was going down a path that she swore she wasn't gonna go down again. And and you know, lo and behold, we're right here. And she's going, but I'm gonna do this. And I'm like, no. And I had to ring her back in. So sometimes, sometimes I, you know, and and it's it's very, I'm I'm one of those people, you know, I take it on as part, it's like it's my own, right? And and I get involved in the levels that that I think a good consultant should be in. Um, I'm not gonna come in and coach you and fluff you and tell you, you know, all these things. I'm gonna give you real strategies and action steps. And here's how it's done. If you can't do it, let's do it together. If we need to get someone to come in and do it, let's do it. So I'm all about the action piece in it. Um, but yeah, some sometimes you gotta just say it, you know, hey, you're in the way, get out of the way, step aside.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Well, and I already kind of got a sense of how you would say it like, what are some of the things that you'd like to do? You so you can kind of nudge them into that direction. But what what size company do you typically work with?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Um, my companies are already in momentum. I am definitely not making the cash register ring for the first time. Um, most likely they have a good product market fit already. Um, so we're probably out of the gate a little bit. And um so, you know, anyone working, you know, a couple hundred, five hundred thousand in revenue, they're already got some sort of momentum up to where I think I cap out somewhere around that say 7 million range, depending on the company. Only because not of my capabilities to help the company at that time, they should not have a fractional person in their in that seat. They should have somebody full-time that's that's always thinking about their company and how to do the things that need to be done. So that's where I think, and that varies depending on the company, you know, where that dollar factor hits. Um, but yeah, you get to that, you get to that phase when when you have really decided that because, you know, in a full-time role, I mean, I could be $180,000 a year.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

You gave me a side eye.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

What was that? Right. Well, you're you're nudging that number and just what is that position? I've yeah, seeing that on a corporate chart. You know, the director of of uh kick curse in the ass, unscrambling the the egg. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Unscrambling the egg, that's fantastic. I think that's my new, that's my new, you know, no longer business growth strategist, but unscrambling the egg er. Unscrambling the egg. Um, you gotta have the er on the egg. That's right. Or the is the is on the end, right? Unscrambling the egg is. Um but you know, when you think about it, so my role very closely aligns, but not completely, totally aligns with a CFO. Okay. So a CFO is seeing the strategy, making the change, but to most often today's CFOs are more in the controller role and the the accounting space.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Not somebody just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

So they're so they're dealing with they're dealing too much with the numbers and they're missing the big picture of the company.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

But um, but yeah, so um, yeah, driver of growth is the unscrambler of the egg or egg is that might be that might be the I think that's the title of this podcast. Marcia Reiner, the unscrambled unscramble your eggs. Unscramble your eggs. You know, no, let's not do that. Let's go with egg is I think eggest is that, yeah, because we want us to declusive egg her, that's bad. Egg him, worse, no. No, we're with egg her. So I'm not I welcome Chris. What? Where are we? Okay, back to the boy. All right, can we get back to this, please, Alard?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

I mean, back to Marcia. I'm sorry to be such a distraction. I know.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Oh my uh so when you come in, there we're working

Letting Go Of Control And Tasks

SPEAKER_03 21:53

through this. One of the questions I had was what were some of the things that people had the hardest time letting go of? Because when you said, Oh, you gotta start giving up some of these things, I'm like, Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

So um there's two C words that um everybody has problems with. Control. Change. Control and change, right? So so um where I like to where I like to look at the things that they let go of um are usually when the the owner founder is is is the um is the technician, right? We want to have them back away from that. And that doesn't mean they don't ever go out and touch the things that they do, right? Touch the equipment and do that. But now I let them know they can be selective and they can cherry pick the job that they want to work on, right? And so it's not it's not pulling the rug out from underneath them, it's it's giving them choice on what they want to do. So I think that becomes uh an easier transition for them. And then they start to realize that they can start to let go of that control. And when they train their team with procedures and processes that they would do themselves if they were in the game, right? Then they can start to trust the team to be able to do the work and make smaller decisions that don't require the owner to go, yeah, well, that's the decision I would have made. I've trained you. This is the outcome I would like you to have. You have this kind of leeway, and you can make that decision on your own.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Seems like control is easier to coach somebody to give up than it is to coach them to embrace change.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yes. Um, change is scary everywhere. So you walk into your office and you go to your staff, your office team, not the ones that are outworking, but the ones that are actually in your office and you walk in on Monday morning. Marcia said, we're doing it differently. You ready? And they're gonna like, they're gonna panic, they're gonna freak out, they're gonna stop you at every possible way. But if you come in and you make small, little incremental changes, you get their buy-in, you ask how they would improve this process, then you can get them to change the direction you want by contributing to the decision-making process. Therefore, change is now their idea and not your idea.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

Yeah, I I've actually witnessed that in my company. In fact, uh, Alan and I, before we got started, talked about uh we we've worked on Alan's house, and I've had a long-term employee. She's amazing, uh, she's great, uh, and she is our central controller of our schedule. And she schedules, as she says, she's got way too many men in our life, but she schedules our 16 handymen and some of our project managers out to job sites. And um, we've told her to embrace uh some changes, and it's been difficult. Um, because with the advent of things like, oh boy, look out for it, AI. Um, we realize that we've got to improve our throughput, and there's other ways we can do it other than having to check the box. But you're you actually said something I think is very poignant because if somebody comes in and tells me cold turkey, hey Chris, no way, you can't do that anymore. Well, I'll sit there and go, Okay, sure. And then you know what I'll do?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

You'll do it anyways. I'm gonna do it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

You're so stubborn. I am stubborn, but I do little thing, but I I agree, uh, because my general manager, I brought him in. Uh Kirk's coming on his second year, and uh, it took me three years to admit that I needed a general manager, and then another three years to actually say, Okay, let's do it. And here he is. And I told him his job was to kick me out of the way. I said, But I'm not gonna go easy. Um, yeah, but and he has found a way, and uh, through through actually through our mastermind group, he's getting some secondary coaching, and I think he's embracing some of the stuff you talked about, small changes. Yeah, small changes and it's working, and that's why I get time to do more podcasts with my buddy Alan and uh get to do other things because I've embraced some of the changes. I can't say I I have the word embrace maybe a little strong, but I've uh I've done it.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

You've accepted. You've accepted I yeah, you've accepted. So here's something that I think is really important on this on this lane we're in right at the moment.

Using AI For Innovation And Margins

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Change is necessary. We cannot do what we did last year this year and expect the same results. So we constantly, this is one of the growth levers that that I pull with clients frequently is innovation. And it can be internal innovation or external innovation, but looking at internal innovations would be a perfect example of your scheduler, right? And how she's doing it her way. And maybe there's a process that can be done that could streamline her um her day, could make it more efficient, more effective, more and allow her to have more hours in her day to do the things that she can't do, right? And so that kind of innovation is incredibly important. And now, due to those two letters that you just, you know, drop the bomb on, AI, um, you have to do it. It's no longer of should I or maybe. You have to. So AI is a very um important thought um developer, right? You can sit down with your scheduler and say, what is the current SOP that you do? How do you do your day, right? Then together you put it into AI and say, how can I improve this? Right. And then, and then she starts to buy in, she starts to go, well, I could do that. No, that wouldn't work. Okay, well, let's do the first one, right? And so that kind of innovation is is really essential because what you're doing now is you pay her X dollars an hour, right? And it takes her eight hours to do it. But what if she could do the same job in say six or even better, four hours, right? Which frees her time up to not be fired and let go, but to now say, what would you like to add on to your plate for those remaining four hours that I don't have to hire somebody else for? But now you become more valuable contributor to the company, where it's harder to let you go now, right? So there's ways of shifting the mind on that. But as as we look at our business, that's how we can stream the profitability. Because if we're looking at cost of goods sold and operating expenses as the the pullers against income coming in, right? That's where we can start to tweak those numbers by saying, How can I get more from production from my team without stressing them out and making them work harder? How can I get better pricing on the products I use to fulfill my commitments with my uh customers? So there's all sorts of things that we can do, but innovation is is just that. It's looking how can I do this better, faster, cheaper, you know, better experience for the customers.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

You know, a lazy uh employer or lazy boss will use AI to cut jobs. A smart boss will figure out a way to use AI to help leverage and grow their company. Wow. And I I don't that's tone it, but I was like, he's right. A lazy person uses AI to cut. Uh a strategic, thoughtful person figured out AI to AI to help maximize and grow your business.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

And I think that that actually that that bleeds into the one of the adages I've always had. You don't cut your way to success.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Yeah. No. Yeah. That's I mean, that's why we're trying to figure out a way to um we had two flat years in a row in the home services business. I've talked to people all across the nation. I've got I'm getting ready to go to the Neri National Conference um again. As former emperor, so well, uh who's now been booted up to the national board, Alan. Oh, that's right. You couldn't stay out of Grand Pooba?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

I am not the emperor is better than Grand Pooba, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:40

It was right. So I was the president of Nary Atlanta last year. Um, and now I'm and I'm moving on. Thank you. She's bowing. She does know how important this it sea, Alan. It is a big deal. Can you virtually kiss the ring? Right, please. And uh, he hates it when I bring out the crown, I have the scepter, I come over the code. Uh, it doesn't like it. Um petals are annoying. But you talk to people nationally, it's been tough, right? Been a tough year. And and so, yeah, one of the things actually one of the guys said is like, What is AI gonna make my job better? I was like, Well, as a matter of fact, it's gonna make all of our jobs better. Uh, they can't replace us working at homes because they need us in the home to do the jobs. Well, we need to figure out a way to do is figure out a better way to do things and get set our own guys up for success. And so that's been it's exactly this this AI is a disruptor, it's a wave. Uh, I had another great uh analogy given to me. AI is like TV. And if you go back and read the historical around TV when it was first brought out, what did they say? I don't remember. Are you saying I'm that old? I thought you were because Alan remembers gaslights and horse buggies.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

I thought you would remember this. Do you remember watching the first moonshot? Do you really? Yeah. My dad, my dad pulled me out of the yard and he's like, quit playing, watch this. You're you're gonna thank me later. And he was right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

But uh TV when they when it came out was a fad. Um, and then people who are marketing said, Well, that's not working. We're gonna stay with radio um because radio has always been the medium, and this is not gonna really work. It's too expensive, people won't buy into it. And TV obviously become a huge disruptor to our entire lifestyle. Here comes the internet, huge disruptor again. AI is just another disruptor. And if you look at it that way, um it's it's a it's a great way to embrace it. And to Marcia's point, it's a great way for people like us, uh, or I should say me, to take a big idea and be able to break it down to small pieces and embrace it small.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Um, everything is small because remember that second C, you know, that's the the change word that nobody likes, right? I mean, it's right up there or or close to the T word with ends in EXS, right? Um, taxes. I know it's like I should have I should have just spelled it out. I forgot you guys were drinking bourbon, I'm not yet.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

But uh she spotted us how many spotted us four all of them, but T. I went with Texas.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

She spotted us four of the five letters, and we're still sitting there going, bewittled, just to totally bewildered. Uh yeah, just painting up a new word, bewittled. I was all over that. You were totally bewildered. Be fuddled and bewildered at the same time. That's my new word. Befuddle. We're here to sound, we can say whatever we want. How's your mama's name? All right.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

It's your show. You can say whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

She often does.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

That's that's the great thing about it. But um, but AI can do a lot of things for you, you know, when we're thinking about how it can really help you, right? It can help you with that thought process and and streamlining things, but it can also help you review data, right? You can look at your numbers. I don't know when the last time um a home service company really looked at their margins, right? Where are they getting their products coming in? What are their costs to really do it? AI can help you in that melt realm to say, hey, am I getting the best price on this, right? Can I shift that price? Can I, where's where's the opportunity that I can cut? So there's so many things in the financial data space that you can use AI to help streamline and get, because I don't know about you, but I don't I took just enough accounting to know how to pick through things, but not enough to really go through. And and oftentimes our accounting teams look backwards and they give us the numbers that are compliance with taxes and how we can shift, but they don't give us that strategy to move forward with so we can do things that are either cutting or or cleaning up or building new relationships or doing things along those lines. So that's one way that that um AI can help you with it on um on those financial terms. It can also help you on um getting your business automated a little bit more, right? So everybody's working on the same, same level and same operating system, right? Like you said, a lot of us are working on old computer systems. And when we should be up to date on everything we're doing that aligns with with the way the business owner would do it if they were doing this, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Right. Because you're trying to make everybody just be just like you all.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Well, think about this. So, so we have we have a um, and I'm not gonna drop any names. We have uh an HVAC company out here, and they talk about, yeah, whenever we go out and do service, we change all the bolts and make sure they're fresh, brand new bolts on that system, right? The the I'm probably speaking the wrong language, but the little screw on there. Um, so everything's tight, it's not gonna fall apart. It's you know, it's just a basic service that we're doing, right? Well, this is a standard operating procedure that they wanted to have all the team members do the same thing, right? So that they don't have to go out and fix it, you know, next time. And so that the consumer, right, will think, oh wow, you're coming out to give me a $19 service and you're changing all the bolts on my air conditioner, so it's not gonna rattle anymore. Really? Wow.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

So in Vegas, that's important.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Well, considering that it got a fill 120 the you know the year before last. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:26

Um I mean thinking thinking on value.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Exactly. So thinking on things that that you can do to separate yourself, right, from all the other HVAC companies out there, or all the other plumbers, or all the other house uh painters or roofers or whatever, you know, those little things that they can do, AI's great for that. Love you know, how do you differentiate ourselves?

SPEAKER_02 36:50

120.

unknown 36:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

120. Do we lose you to 120?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah, I'm just like he didn't hear a word I said. He only heard 120.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

120, blah blah blah. 120. I can help you fix your business. Blah blah blah. Well, I'm like, what did we do before air conditioning? It's a dry heat.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Uh you weren't and it's made and it's worse. It's like you're sitting in the oven, and then when the breeze keeps going, gets going, then you've got air, uh, a hairdryer in your face.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

You're vaccine. Like your air fryer. Yeah, you're your air fryer convection.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Your hair fryer, you're sitting in an air fryer. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Going down, going down.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

That's fantastic.

Podcasting Visibility And Exit Planning

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Or see, obviously, you've got uh you've got your podcast, uh infinite profit. Um, you've been doing this thing for seven and a half years, and I and we got a couple of minutes left before we start wrapping everything up. I'm just interested, why did you start your podcast? What was your why on that?

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Visibility. And and so one of my mentors, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

So one of my mentors said, Hey, this thing, podcasting back in 2019, this is the thing you need to do. Did it exist in 2018?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

2018. You must have been one of the first podcasters ever.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

No, no, I'm just I'm just one that stayed with it, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Um, and and so I bought myself a microphone, and my first couple podcasts were me all being like, ooh, hey. Hey, they were terrible. So so yeah, so I should have pulled out the bourbon. It would have been a lot more fun.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

You should have. Well, we were drinking from day one. I'm not lying. Um, in fact, I told Alan, you come do our podcast, I'll buy the drinks, come on down to my uh office. He's on his way down, says, Yeah, I'm coming down. You know, I'm like, hey man, yeah, I don't have any beer. Bring a bourbon. Can you bring so we started with beer, beer at my office because we had to drive back to my or we had to drive back to our houses, but uh so you did it for visibility because of a mentor that so yeah, so so I started doing it.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Um, and uh I kept pretty true to my you know growth. Uh it's called Profit with a Plan. I'm a previous financial planner, and so I need you to I'm in and my mind works. Let's build the plan out and pieces and you know, according and all that kind of stuff. Um, but yeah, profit with a plan. Um and yeah, it's just been fantastic. I talk on increasing revenue and driving growth so you can eventually sell your company. Uh, when I first came out of the financial services um space, I was doing exit planning. And um, the strategies I want to do is often too late by the time they start thinking about planning because they've already got one foot out the door. And uh and so my advisor at that time said, well, let's switch it. Let's talk about growth and all the strategies that if you do it now, you make a great company now that you love and enjoy and is very profitable. And, you know, and and those same strategies also make a really great company that makes you attractive when you're ready to sell. And in the the um, in the home services industry, that's a perfect combination, right? Because these are very good sale opportunities because you have a client list, you have a service that you're performing, and it can go on forever. It's always needed. Somebody has a house or or a place somewhere that needs repair or upgrades or improvements, or you know, whether they're selling or whatever. So there's always this need. We'll always have a house to live in. So there's always going to need to be home services in there fixing them. So these are these are companies that we should look at making strong today and attractive for tomorrow. So that when you do exit and it's on your terms, whether it's to junior, the competition, your partner, an MA, someone who just wants to come in and flip it and turn, or even mesh it with a whole group of services, which are very common these days in in your industry, that you're ready and you can get the maximum value, which could be could be three, four, five times revenue, right? You're gonna pull could be seven, eight, no, seven, eight. Well, I was trying to be under under under offer over deliver, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Right, under offer, overdeliver. But I'm telling you to trust the toolbox is ready to rock and roll. We're ready to take this thing nationwide. We'll kick the crap out all these franchises if we uh if we partner with the right.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Well, if that's if that's the path you want to do, but but when you do it though, you should be ready. So that means that you have to be ready and out of the way because nobody wants to buy your J O B. They want to, and that's and that's another factor. A buyer has the choice because they want to buy your company. When you're selling, it's usually because you need to sell.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

And so you need to move, and they are like, Well, maybe, well, if you if if it looks good, on you know, so that's why if you stack your company in a way that the financials look good, the people look good, your systems and processes look good, your operations as a whole look good, then you can go in there and go, Well, this is what you're gonna pay me for it.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

And they're going to think about exit strategy before you need 100 exit. We've been we've talked from day one so many from day one, guys.

SPEAKER_03 42:25

We talked about this quite a bit. It's so important.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Uh day one. It's also how you get a hold of you. It's also how you know you don't come in and say Marcia and company, you name it something that's saleable, right?

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Not the more trusted toolbox, Alan. Yeah, right. I'm still sticking with screw that.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

So, yeah, so um I am at my company is infinite profit. You can find it at infinite-profit.com. I'm over all over social. My podcast is profit with a plan. So those kind of things

Free Growth Assessment And Closing

SPEAKER_00 42:56

are out there. But would it be all right if I give you guys your audience a free gift?

SPEAKER_03 43:01

Yeah, please. We love free stuff.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

We all love free stuff.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Last for sure, extra large LF green stripes.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Um, more along the lines of no a really easy, you're so funny.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

You ready for it? Yeah, I have ready now.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Okay. It's a really easy way to figure out what the next growth move would be for you ideally for your company. And um, so I've got this, um, I've got this uh automation and this process that if you take and answer eight questions that you ought to know already, and you put it into the system, it's gonna give you an assessment and rank you and tell you what the next growth move, the next three growth moves would be perfect for you and your situation and what you could do with them. So it's real handy, it's real easy. It doesn't require a call by me to be able to read the report to you. It's all done. You get it, you get to. You on it, and if you want some help, I'm here. You've seen how my brain works. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Um that does sound like a brain.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

It's it's at uh it you can get it for free uh anytime at profitbooster.biz. And it's called a profit. That, oh my gosh. So so that and infinite profit are both trademarked.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Amazing. Nice well done.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Profit booster as my brand, uh and my action brand, and infinite profit as my company. Only because some Yahoo came in and had my old company rolled into Southern California and said he could use it because he has a Wyoming uh corporation. And I'm like, so I changed my name and decided no, never again.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Huh. I like how you called him a Yahoo because I uh actually have another word, but because we're a family show. Yeah, well, are we a family show today? No, we're not.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

We are a family show.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

All right, so that's boss awesome. Marcia Reiner, check her out, man. This guy, this has been awesome. We've learned a lot, guys. And if you ever learned something, man, this is so on you. You've got to figure this thing out. And if the only thing you learn today is to get yourself out of the own way, and there's the two C's you gotta get out of, maybe you had something going for you. But if you pick up a little something else and you want to go find out more about it, go see Marcia Reiner, Profit Booster, make it happen. Marcia, thanks so much. We've got to get going. We gotta roll, let's get going, rock and roll. Hot 120 coming on the heart. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Got ears, everybody. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 45:34

Thank you for 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 the wild world of small business ownership. And until next time, make it a great day.