The Path to Profits: Building a Business That Supports Your Life with Michelle Jacobik

Your business can look successful on the outside and still be one slow month away from panic.

In this episode, I sit down with business strategist and bestselling author Michelle Jacobik to talk about the financial side of entrepreneurship that too many business owners avoid: cash flow, debt, profitability, and the decisions that either fuel growth or create stress.

Michelle shares practical advice on overcoming financial avoidance, understanding the difference between good and bad debt, building a cash flow strategy, and creating a business that can actually support the life you want. She also offers simple steps to take when cash flow gets tight and explains why clarity—not panic—is the first step toward solving financial challenges.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by your numbers or wondered whether you're making the right financial decisions, this conversation is for you.

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Transcript

Why Money Breaks Great Businesses

Jennifer Johnson 0:01

One of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs face isn't lack of passion or talent. It's learning how to manage the money side of their business in a way that fuels growth instead of stress. Cash flow, profitability, and strategic financial decisions are what keeps keeps businesses healthy. Yet they're also the areas that trip us up, as so many business owners can attest to. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Mel Michelle Jacobic. She's a powerhouse business strategist, award-winning author, and motivational speaker, known for guiding entrepreneurs from financial chaos to clarity. She's the author of several best-selling books. And Michelle's story and practical advice have been featured on ABC, CBS, Fox, and Entrepreneur Magazine. In this conversation, we'll explore how entrepreneurs can align their vision with their financial strategy, avoid the pitfalls that sink so many small businesses, and learn to build companies that actually fund the life that they want. Michelle, thank you so much for being here today. Oh my God, I'm so excited for this conversation, Jennifer. I am too, because I have to admit that the things we're talking about today are not my strong suit. I know that's gonna come to a shock as a shock to many, haha. But I'm the creative side. And I know that that is where a lot of people fall into in their realm of their business. And, you know, they leave this up to someone else, the financial part. So this is gonna be gold today.

Michelle Jacobik 1:39

I really let's go. I love it. And listen, we we've all been there, right? One of the things that I'll just add, you know, it's funny when you sit back and you're listening to somebody read your bio, you're like, oh yeah, whatever, you know, because like the truth is that for somebody that's listening, right? Like that's kind of like my middle right now. I mean, some people might think it's the end, or maybe when I was in my 30s, I was like, I'm done at 50, right? Here I am 57, and I'm like in this whole new reinvention chapter, right? And really in a new place of service. And I think what I love so much is when I step back and I'm listening, it's like, wait a minute, let's talk about the messy middle. Because the truth is that the girl that started this journey, right, I leapt out of the house at 19 years old, thinking I had this complete sense of financial confidence. I had all of my crap together, right? And I was just gonna make this huge vision dream, everything on my vision board come to life. And the truth was that I found myself three years later in major amounts of credit card debt, payday loans, right? And I was actually working for a financial services firm and learning all the things about finances and compound interest and all the things as I was playing that keeping up at the Joneses,

The Messy Middle And Avoidance

Michelle Jacobik 2:50

right? And that whole fake it to you make it thing. And add to that that I'm a huge law of attraction person, right? So at the same time that I left out of the house, right, with like this huge sense of like what I thought was financial maturity, uh, my angel investor showed up, visa and MasterCard, right? And so here I am. Yeah, let's grab those cards, look at that. You know, my parents didn't necessarily, they wanted me to have more structure and less risk. They both work for a municipality, you know. I the their whole goal was you need health insurance at 18 years old, not 26 like today. You need to have health insurance. And I was just like, whatever, right? I didn't want that security and stability because I thought like an entrepreneur, but I the thought the big thinking is what actually brought you the results. And the truth is that what it brought me was a mess. And so um it it gave me the space, right, to go when I when I talk about this messy middle piece, it gave me the space to figure out when I landed there, how did I have to work my way out of it? And I'll and I truly believe that financial consistency is actually what leads to financial stability and allows entrepreneurs to actually take those bigger leaps that they may not be taking today if they actually get out of the financial avoidance. And I was in complete financial avoidance at that time.

Jennifer Johnson 4:10

That's what it is. It is like I'm gonna dig my head in the sand, it's gonna go away, it this will be fine, and the house is burning down.

Michelle Jacobik 4:18

Yes, yes. And you know, I write about this on the path of profits. It's one of the top things that people highlight, right? They highlight, I talk about the results of financial avoidance when I work with clients. It's always the same three things that I see. It's misaligned spending. We're putting money in places that we likely shouldn't have done. We're actually spending money on the fix, the next thing that we think is going to actually make the business work or profitable. So it's misaligned spending, it's missed opportunities because when the right thing does come along, we don't have the the cash flow or the credit even to leverage to say, oh my God, that's it. This one opportunity could have changed the trajectory of the business. Maybe being in a room, right, at a conference or something. You know, I host my Envision event at the end of every year. Millions of dollars have passed and we have a rule of no-selling. But the connections and the incubator and the magic that happens in there when people can't get themselves in the room because they, in financial avoidance, have spent money in other directions, they miss opportunities. And then the third thing with the financial avoidance that people highlight in the Path of Profits is this sense of financial instability and financial scarcity, like the guilt, the shame. We've all felt it if we've made mistakes. Even when you have a kick-ass year and you're like, oh my God, I have the best year, and then you get the tax bill, and you're like, oh, I'm $30,000 short from what I needed. And I thought I did a great job, right? So I love going into these conversations, right? Because the pitfalls that happen with entrepreneurs usually happen around money. They happen around our addiction even to the hustle. And then our health is, you know, put at risk. So it your your show is the ability to talk to people about the things that are icky, right? That they can be like, all right, all right, I hear you, Jennifer and Michelle, right? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. And then really, like it's an invitation for change, right? Like, what what do we really want to create?

Jennifer Johnson 6:17

So it's being real about it.

Michelle Jacobik 6:19

Yeah.

Jennifer Johnson 6:20

So getting real about it. You have what is is there really a difference? I I just people think debt is debt, right? But you're saying there's good debt and there's bad debt.

Michelle Jacobik 6:32

Yeah, I think that you know there is a difference, right? I think the first thing that I love to do is teach entrepreneurs to look beyond the debt label, right? The bigger question is do they have a clear vision? Do they know what they actually want this business to do for them, right? Like what is it, what is the vision for their lifestyle? What is the I call it like, let's do it life by design, right? Build the business to align with the lifestyle

Good Debt Starts With Vision

Michelle Jacobik 6:57

and the things that authentically are what you want to create, right? So when I host my Envision event and actually the pillars and the path of profits, the whole vision pillar is bringing people through the exercises to figure out where are you now in different areas of your life? It's not just about the business, it's not just about the money. It's where are you in regards to social and fun? Where are you in your personal relationships, right? With your children, with your spouse, with your family, where are you in terms of money? Where are you spiritually? It's all of the things. And getting a clear vision of where you are now and where you'd like to be is the first step, right? And then I think that it's also this whole get out of the debt label and get clear about your cash flow strategy. Like, what do you need this business to do for you, right? What is the lifestyle cost? What is your contribution? If you're single, it's all on you, right? But if you're part of a partnership, there's room for conversation that has to happen about, well, what part are you responsible for with the lifestyle? So the flow pillar of the path to profits gives you the exercises to get clear about the cash flow strategy and not necessarily even before you apply it to the business, but looking at it through a lens of like going under the hood of the lifestyle of the business overhead and saying, all right, what do I need to create? Right. Again, I believe that the vision activates the money. And part of the vision is getting clear about what you need the business to do for you. You know, people say don't create a job for yourself. But if you can't take a paycheck from your business, that's a problem, right? And I think the other part of this is before we even like talk about labeling debt, the clarity also has to be in your profitability model, right? Are before you take on financing, is the business or what you're going to do, is there a profitability model that supports taking on the financing and actually being able to pay it back, right? Not just to pay yourself, so to speak. Maybe it's a runway to pay yourself, which I don't recommend, but there are places where people can use the leverage, right? In terms, but if the profitability model doesn't support it, then there's a problem. Debt isn't the villain, right? It's actually the lack of planning that people step away from, they don't work on that actually puts them in the situation where things that could have been good debt actually become bad debt because the business closes and they're stuck with the debt, right? Or they're now yeah, I I agree.

Jennifer Johnson 9:27

So many people though, if you're uh an entrepreneur or a small business owner, you start your business because you you see a hole in the market, right? And you, you're like, you know what, I know I can feel this, I know I can do this. They don't think ahead to that. They don't think how, what do I want this business to do for me? They're essentially, like you said, buying themselves a job, which is not the way to look at it. But how do you get somebody to step back and say, all right, before they even start their business? I mean, people should have like 101s on these before they even start their business. There needs to be, before you get your business license, yeah, tell me your why.

Michelle Jacobik 10:08

Yeah. So I call it starting with the financial baselines, right? You have to know what you need the business to do for you, as I said, right? And then model the cash flow to see if the business can actually sustain repayment without choking your growth. So here's what happens, right? You just said it. Many entrepreneurs they want to bypass the sweat equity that could have kept them financially sound. They grab their credit cards to start or even to grow their business before they've even tested to see if they actually have a solution to a problem that people want solved, right? We are entrepreneurs, we're always going to be inspired by new ideas, right? We have this different lens of glasses that we wear.

Financial Baselines Before You Leap

Michelle Jacobik 10:46

Um, and I think that that's part of the creativity piece. Like you said, you're creative. Like you run multiple things and you can see opportunities in the marketplace, right? With different ways that you can create money. So the first thing is going like, okay, I know that I have this gift of seeing things, right? But that isn't what makes the business profitable. So bypassing the work, the business plan, the financial modeling and forecasting, like what does it look like for the first five years, for the first seven years? If you don't sit down, if you jump and run that start that business before you even sat down and ran any financial model on the business idea or build out a solid business plan, that's a problem. If you go grab debt and you're you're like, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna literally like leverage my credit cards, leverage my equity in my home, whatever those, whatever the leverage is, before you know how long that leverage will last, even if there's no issues, right?

Jennifer Johnson 11:45

Yes.

Michelle Jacobik 11:45

What happens is the runway that we we think the runway is gonna be shorter, right? Even for me, right? I I took a seven-figure exit. I owned an insurance agency and in Connecticut, did that for 27 years, and I had the benefit of building something. I built it to sell, I built it for cash flow, right? And then I built it to sell. And so for me, I had to look at like, all right, if I'm gonna make this decision to leave, what are the things that I'm gonna take on in my lifestyle, right? Well, I had a company car, I had health insurance, all of those things. I left a marriage, right? I had to, I that financial crossroads before, and I had the benefit of sitting down and figuring out the modeling of it. Some people are in a like a flight situation where they need to get out and they don't have the runway. But when you do have the time, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs do have the time, and they make a decision to leave that secure job on Tuesday, thinking that they're going to be making money by like the following 90 days. And lucky for some people, they are. But even for me as a seasoned entrepreneur, when I came out of my exit, I took a year off and kind of like visioned like what would be next for me. And I thought with all of the years of experience that I had, that it would be a shorter timeline. Well, guess what? It wasn't. I thought it would take me a year to get to 300,000. It didn't take me a year. It took me three years to actually figure out who I was, the market I was serving. The first book is called Prosperity After Divorce, Take Charge of Your Finances and Recreate the Life You Want. It's again all about personal finances and helping people like reset after any type of transition. I thought that was the place I was anointed to go and serve. But the truth was that while I was doing great work, it was depleting me going into divorce situations because I'm the girl who wants to bring you forward into the prosperity. But many people are stuck in that place if they're not ready yet, right? They're in the grieving place. So I was meeting them in that space of the financial accounting and the getting through the mediations and all of those things. So they have my trust to move forward, but they weren't necessarily ready. And I remember like praying on it, Jen, and being like, okay, am I quitting before the miracle happens? Am I a bad servant leader? Like, oh my God, like are am I quitting on the thing, my assignment? All the normal things. And you know what? I literally, that was year three. And I remember just thinking, I'm financially depleting myself, I'm emotionally depleted, and I don't believe that abundance and when we're in our true gifts, I don't believe that the suffering goes along with it. And so I had to take a step back and follow my own modeling and say, okay, God, like am I really in my gifts? And I literally heard you left half of your gifts in the last chapter because I came into this chapter thinking, oh, this is my purpose chapter, right? I'm looking for the place to make the impact in the world. But I had worked with entrepreneurs for 27 years as a trusted advisor. And I put all those gifts in the last chapter and didn't bring them over. And as soon as I heard that, I was like, wait, what didn't what didn't I bring over? It was so clear to me. So by the time I hit year three, I finally got it, boom, two by four, and I pivoted the business, right? Which is scary because you're like, I just put all of this effort and financial resources and time into something, but I had to intuitively go in and say, all right, what now? So that runway that I thought would be one year was really five years. It was really five because I re-re-engineered in year three, and then it took three to five to actually get my you know bearings and get out and rebrand and kind of do the things that I was doing and call in the people that I was meant to work with. And I think that's what we're talking about. We're talking about if you aren't looking and you think that the leverage that you're pulling is going to be like accessible and last for a year, I'm telling you, you better have two to three years accessible or some other way to create money before you just throw everything at the business and make a run for it, right? And that's 90% of the people. 10% of the people, they'll come out and they'll hit magic and they've got a lot of experience and they've got a great idea. But even they will tell you, most people that have been at it, even with the sweat equity, that they're doing something else to create revenue or they've made some decisions about the wealth that they built to put towards the new thing, right? So does that answer your question?

Jennifer Johnson 16:14

It does. And it always, we as entrepreneurs, I think we always shoot for the moon and think, oh, this is gonna happen so much quicker. We're the eternal optimists just knowing, hey, set yourself up that this could take five years. It's going to take longer than you think it's going to actually take, is really good advice. You know, during that building process, how do you evaluate whether or not taking on debt's a smart move? Because, you know, again, there's the good debt, the bad debt, right? That's what we were kind of talking about. But how do you how do you discern whether or not it's a good idea to do that?

Michelle Jacobik 16:50

You know, I think one of the places that I say to people about taking on good debt, I believe in investing in human capital. Okay. Human capital, when you're first of all, many times we're trying to do things ourselves, right? And we know that we become the bottleneck. Because if you're trying to make more money, you need to be focused on the things where you're gifted and the revenue is actually being generated. So if you're spending time in the weeds and you're doing all the things that are keeping you from connecting with new customers, letting people know that you're open for business and looking for more, building strategic alliances and partnerships and serving the clients, then there's a problem. So I'm a firm believer that if you're going to take on any type of debt and leverage credit to your advantage, that you should be doing that when you're investing in human capital, which should have a return, right? If you're bringing on somebody, like for example, the first person that I brought on, I went from having 22 people in my business to me. And I was like doing all the things. And now you also have to be strategic. I didn't go put somebody on my payroll coming right out of the gate, right? But when I was ready and I was like, okay, I've got to get some of these things off my plate because they're weighing me down, right? Um, the first thing I did was I hired somebody five hours a month. And that five hours a month when somebody's in their gifts is equal to your 20, right? And just starting, right? It just starting with five hours a month or taking and hiring somebody for a project is the first thing that allows you to take that project and activate more money. So I believe that, you know, for me, I've always invested in mentorship, always. I've for 37 years, I have had someone on my consulting team that is smarter than me, trusted advisors from the CPA to the attorney to the people that I know. They know more than me, and they're it's not my zone of genius. I know taxes, I did taxes for years. I know financial advising, I had my financial advising license for 23 years, but I never did my own advising. I did it because it was a stream of revenue that was a part, a leg of the insurance agency, right? Um, but I have people, I've always been willing to invest in a team, a team of advisors that are gonna help me collapse the timeline, save me from mistakes. They know the the, you know, I always say like when people come to me, they don't what's the difference between myself and somebody else? I'm like 37 years of experience, right? And and someone who's been in every industry, because in my insurance world as a risk manager and trusted advisor, I had 600 manufacturing plants and 300 general contractors and doctors and restaurants and multiple retail stores and nonprofits. So my acumen for business isn't just what I did in my own business and creating it, buying it, pouring gasoline on it, and selling it, it's all of the experience that I have in working in the other places where other people are. So I I think human capital is always paid off for me, right? Even if you make the wrong hire, you can always

Debt That Buys Time And Talent

Michelle Jacobik 19:53

go back and rehire. And so I feel like that's a great place to leverage. I also feel like if you're needing support, and I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make, and look, you and I are both business strategists that work with people to shorten their timeline. But one of the things that I see, and I'm sure you see this as well, Jennifer, is so many people at the emerging stage of business are making advanced business investments. Like cut it out, right? You are a new business. Why are you pulling out your credit card for a $30,000 coaching program?

Jennifer Johnson 20:29

Because they want to, they feel like a timeline or it's going to get them in the crowd with the big guys, which is proximity, right, right, proximity.

Michelle Jacobik 20:39

But then get yourself in the room and meet some people and take the things that you can do to elevate the business, right? Read the book, listen to the podcast. That's why I love you're always putting out content to be able to help new entrepreneurs and people that are in the weeds come out of it because you're like, wait, listen to some of these strategic things that I've learned. You bring on guests that can support that. But I think that's one of the biggest things that I see. One of the things that I would say is please stop pulling out your credit card and making advanced business decisions. Now, listen, I make a living supporting people, but ask the person that you see as a guide to you whether or not if you're if you're not in a position to make that investment for the advanced business, can you do a power hour? Can you do a VIP? Right? I could have somebody come in for a weekend. I just had somebody leave here this weekend and she wasn't even on the plane and literally put up a beautiful post. I was brought to tears and said, this trip to Naples, getting she only had one day with me. She came in. We only worked one day. Normally I work two half days with people, and I get a whole, you know, two and a half days with them. So I get the whole entrepreneur. She literally said that what she got in six hours was equivalent to four or five different one year programs. And it was literally 25% of what she spent on her highest program, right? And so as Asking the person that you see yourself as aligned with, what else you can do if the bigger ticket item doesn't feel right to get that first taste, to get the first alignment of profitability or striking out some new idea and maybe taking that playbook and collapsing time, but also not having buyer's remorse that the playbook wasn't one you should have been playing with.

Jennifer Johnson 22:23

And let's be honest, you and I have both seen in our world, and and many entrepreneurs see this too, is there's so many people out there who, you know, they put a shingle on their door and they're the expert because, you know, the whole adage that if you know 10% more than someone else knows, yeah, you're the expert, right? We've been spoon-fed that forever. When then that that couldn't be further from the truth. Just because you learned something a little bit more in depth or took a class for two hours, doesn't mean that you're the expert that can charge $30,000 a year for a program and you're going to come out on the other side of it better. Absolutely.

Michelle Jacobik 23:00

And then you just lost your money.

Jennifer Johnson 23:02

Yeah.

Michelle Jacobik 23:02

And I think the biggest thing too, like as entrepreneurs, is we have to know that it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to ask for references and call them, right? I wouldn't hire somebody without calling references. I wouldn't hire somebody without doing a background check, to be honest with you. I wouldn't hire somebody without having them do a Colby to see what their natural gifts are, right? So how my biggest thing with entrepreneurs is like take that same lens that you would apply and anything else that you're doing in your business when you're building your team of trusted advisors, whether it's your CPA, your insurance agent, right? Like the best referral always comes from a referral because you know someone else has had an experience and they work with this person, right? That's that's where I do my business. It's like, oh, I moved to Florida four years ago. I didn't knowbody, right? And so here I am with this big geographical change. And who's the best resource? My hairdresser, right? Who's like connecting me, right? To all of these people. And I'm like, Because yes, because she's been here for you know her whole life. And she she knows who would be aligned and who wouldn't be aligned. She knows what I was looking for. So I think a lot of it is just like putting on that CEO hat, right? Many times that when we're in the weeds of our business, we forget that we have so many different lenses to run our things through. But step back, take a breath, don't be pressured, don't worry about the FOMO, and don't worry about somebody who even might be at a different phase of their business. If you're at the beginning or the middle, if they're if they're at the 10-year mark, that investment they made is clearly gonna be a different output because they may have more time to give to the program. They may have more time to invest in like building out the things because they've got staff support. So I think it's kind of looking at the lens and saying, like, where where are you gonna get the most, you know, the most like return? I think be really diligent. Again, human capital, which takes back, gives you back some of your time, not going all in, right? Like I opened up Naples Beach Chair Rentals. Uh, we do beach chair and umbrella rentals. We launched it in January. A lot of people don't even know that it's mine. But my husband and I are running it like literally um, no employees, but we created this business to create jobs here in Naples. We don't want to run it, but we did not go hire and put people on the payroll in the first year because we don't know what we don't know. We've never run a rental company. So we're sweat equitying it. I he does the morning deliveries, I do the evening pickups, and we're making it work to see what we don't know before we go take on debt to run it, because the debt would be running payroll, right? So when I say human capital, even the investment in human capital, I could go take out a $50,000 loan and leverage that to hire. But let me tell you something. What I if I didn't know what season was like here, we've never lived in a seasoned community. I wouldn't know whether or not the business could sustain, right? If the business could sustain the payroll. And I don't want to create a job just to take it away. And you know that because you have this thriving company and you have to be really cognizant as well of how many people you hire to run the store.

Jennifer Johnson 26:04

I agree. And I'm so glad that you brought that up because my next question is centering around cash flow. And what is your approach when cash flow gets tight? Because it's inevitable, it seems like, and no matter what business you have. And I know Southwest Florida, we are extremely seasonal. So the people usually feel it by the time August, September, October rolls around, we're like ready for everyone to come back from season. What are your suggestions around cash flow getting tight?

Michelle Jacobik 26:37

This might be my favorite question that you've asked today. Cash flow is king. And I say cash flow, meaning it can't just come in and go out. There has to be a sense of it coming in and you telling the dollars where they're gonna go, right? When they come in and before they come in. So my clients build reserves, they track profitability, they know their break-even numbers, and they don't scramble reactively. They don't have their head buried in the sand, as you said earlier, right? But for those that aren't there yet, right, when cash flow is tight or clogged, I love one, telling people to remind themselves that they can create money in a multitude of ways. So the first thing that I say is make a decision to change it. Make a decision not to go into financial avoidance, as we were just talking about, right? I tell people to sell something. Like we all know that we have more stuff than we need. Sell something. Just selling something on marketplace or like selling something feels like you had a win. It's like, and it reminds us, it reminds us that there's this energy to money, right? That we can come out of this, like, oh my God, my business is failing. I don't know how I'm gonna make payroll Friday. It's like, can you sell something and then feel a win that reminds you that you're a creator? Okay. The second thing is cut something. Like, what can you cut? Go under the hood, look at the subscriptions, look at the places that you're spending money, and get rid of the things that are, and even if it's temporary, if you're not going to the gym because it's hot outside, guess what? Like, I'm sorry, if you're if you're not going to the gym because it's beautiful outside, guess what? You're gonna take advantage of being outdoors in the winter, pause the gym, right? The other thing that I tell people is re-offer something that worked before and get back to business basics. Get out and network, connect. Don't think that just posting on Facebook and a social once a day is enough because it's not enough, right? And then lastly, I I want to talk back to a lot of people get stuck here in this cash flow shortage and this clogging because they're playing by other people's playbooks. And what I mean by that is like a course, a webinar, the coach they hired is telling them that there's a shortcut to the results they want. And they stopped doing the thing that actually was generating consistent revenue. And that's actually one of the things that causes the cash flow clog. I'll share my own example. Okay. So I made a pivot, uh, oh God, two

Cash Flow Triage That Works

Michelle Jacobik 29:08

years ago, right? After putting out the path to profits, right? Got three book awards and that international book award. It was in the Grammy gift bags, right? Like it was, it had a lot of recognition around it the year that it came out, that first three or four months. Um, I had a lot of people in my inner circle saying, take a pivot and move to paid speaking, right? And I know that you also speak, I speak. Like, and here's the thing: I don't love speaking on stages as a keynote, right? But I'm like, okay, I'm gonna build my confidence. I love workshopping, I love transformation, I love getting in and like running my own thing and like moving people through an experience and connecting people in rooms. I know what I love. You can feel it, right? Like you can feel the difference between I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna go keynote. And I'm grateful for I do. Yeah, okay, I love that. So you're gonna love this, right? So I was eight, so here's what happened. I took a 30% hit on my revenues last year. I'm sorry, the year before, listening to everyone else's playbook, right? I was already in my revenues were at 350,000 with no paid speaking gigs before I wrote book two, right? And when others started to convince me that I should be getting paid to speak, that I would easily hit a million dollars, right? And I was like, well, of course, right? 4,000 of speaking gigs, 7,500, 15K. Now the truth is that I did hit some of those gigs out of the park. I had quite a few $4,000 gigs. I had a couple $7,500. I even had a $15,000 one in the metrics, right? However, here's what I realized a year later, okay. When I sat down mid-year last year and looked at my own metrics, not the playbook that everybody else was playing by. When I looked at my own metrics, was I know that I wanted to move 150 entrepreneurs through my one-on-one financial foundations program, right? I build the tool, I go under the hood of their money, I build out their cash flow tools, I build an escrow envelope system, personal and business. It's very, it's very, very holistic, right? And I knew my goal was 150 people that I wanted to run in 12 months through that program. Here's the truth. If I wanted to earn that same 350, which I was already doing by running people through this program, right, by just giving useful and helpful advice, 20 minutes, getting on a podcast, doing whatever for free. Um, here's what it meant. The same 350, if I use that benchmark of like $7,500, I would need 47 speaking gigs. I don't want to travel 47 times around the country, right? And actually be living in hotels. Like I finally get myself to my dream location living here in Naples. I don't want to leave. I love it here. So I when I sat down and I started looking at this closer at the mid midpoint last year, I was like, I gotta look at my own playbook, my own metrics, right? And when I reverse engineered it, it was 47 speaking engagements to get to the same 350. And the truth is that I know my metrics. If I can have a conversation, if I can share something useful and helpful to 65 people without even making an offer, I can convert 20% people, right? So that means that with that closing ratio, all I have to do is talk to 65 people a month, and I don't have to go anywhere. I can connect with people, share information in other communities. I run a community, I can invite people into my own rooms. But the truth is that I can easily hit a million by just serving 150 people. I'm literally just shy of a million. But you know what? I didn't sit down. I just was like, oh, that's what I'm gonna do, right? I'm a best-selling author. Da-da-da-da. So I think the biggest thing is really looking at if you're stuck in your cash flow clock, step back, sell something, cut something, re-offer something that worked. What was working for me, I actually started to abandon. And my revenues dropped 30%. And it was starting to look at that to say, what how what's happening? What why am I not generating what should have been an easy benchmark? You were listening to it. Yes, as soon as I re-engaged the field with what was working, everything struck the last 18 months in the right direction. And the truth is, what I want is to serve more people. It's not about more speaking engagements, it's about serving more people and helping them stay in business. That is my goal. I want to help 100,000 businesses until I die. That's my goal. Actually stay in business and do it profitably. So re-engage the field. Yeah. Re-engage your own field, right? And see if what you've done in the past was working, go back to it. If you were networking and you stopped and you realize that your cash flow is clouding, get back out there and network. Build those strategic partnerships, do the things that actually work. Like write a press release for God's sakes. Most people may have done that in the beginning of their business, right? They put out a business brief, they told the chamber what was happening, and they haven't sent anything in in like three years. Right, because you know, the one time was enough.

Jennifer Johnson 34:11

Right. One time is enough. I love what you're saying. It's it's like momentum building. You get the small win of the selling the thing, or you get the small win of cutting something out, and that gives you the courage to take action on a next item and it builds on each other. It's very much like PR. When you get that first win, you're gonna use that first win to get your second win, and so on and so forth. And then it just layers on top of each other, which gives you that great confidence that you can do this.

Michelle Jacobik 34:45

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Jennifer Johnson 34:47

You know, but what if you get to a point where you feel like the debt is just unmanageable? You you've tried all the things, you've done all this stuff. And what's the first step in trying to untangle this whole, oh my gosh, I'm in debt kind of situation?

Michelle Jacobik 35:06

And it's I'll be honest with you, my phone is off the hook right now because people are there, right? A lot of businesses are there. And I'm seeing people grab for not your traditional streams of leverage, like you know, the personal credit cards or equity line, their home equity lines or business lines. They're grabbing because those things have run out, they're grabbing for things like invoice factoring, they're grabbing for MCA loans, which are absolutely awful, awful. So the first thing that I would say if the debt feels unmanageable is get support, right? You've got the step one is to have clarity so that you can actually craft a repayment plan, right? So many entrepreneurs don't even know what they're spending. And my work honestly starts with untangling the numbers so they can actually make real data-driven decisions and not emotional decisions. And for me, it's data, right? And I can come alongside of people because I've been there with the stress, the shame, the guilt, and help them understand like we you just have to make a different decision today. And sometimes that first decision is I can't do this alone because I might make the wrong decision. So the wrong decision, meaning grabbing an MCA loan, that's at 40%, you don't realize it. And it's a if you already have cash flow problems and these loans are there for you, they're they're coming off of your future accounts receivable. There, a lot of contractors are doing these and getting tons of phone calls. The truth is, if you already have a cash flow problem and you're trying to use the future invoices that you're waiting on from your general contractors or somebody that hired you, or you know, clients that owe you money. It could be, you know, an insurance agent that does financing even. It's a problem because if your people aren't paying you, you aren't going to have the cash flow to pay the daily loan back. Because those are daily loans and weekly loans that crush your cash flow that's already crushed, right? So I think the first thing is untangling the numbers so you can make data-driven, non-emotional decisions and putting this space between your buying decisions, right? I think one of the biggest muscles that we all have to build is actually putting space between ourselves and the buying decision. Marketing is flying at us, credit is available at an all-time high. So we think that grabbing at that thing and not putting some discernment between ourselves and our situation and the actual buying decision is a lot of the problem because we haven't built the muscle of putting something between it, right? The discernment muscle.

Jennifer Johnson 37:31

Yeah.

Michelle Jacobik 37:32

And so I think, you know, many times when you hit this wall where it feels unmanageable, um, people go into financial avoidance or they've been there for a while, right? So I see the same things. Like I said, when they're there, they're misaligned spending, they're grabbing at the wrong types of fixes for credit. Um, they're taking and going with like credit

When Debt Feels Unmanageable

Michelle Jacobik 37:50

repair companies that aren't really even helping with the credit repair. So get the right support, right? It's one of the things that I love to do is just hear what's happening for somebody and make sure that they don't make the wrong decision around the support that they're taking. And the truth is that there are many times where I have to guide somebody on bankruptcy being the right decision. And being okay with the fact, like if you've tried everything, I mean, sometimes the economy is the reason that the business is where it is. And you didn't play, you didn't overplay, you didn't overspend. And when I come alongside of somebody and I see like this is where you are, and it wasn't because of misaligned spending or different things that you've done to go big too fast. Sometimes it's the economy. You've got to have some support to be able to say emotionally, even it's okay, right? You need a reset. And so I think, you know, for me, it's helping people, it's it's that support piece. It's if the debt is unmanageable, don't try to manage it alone. Get support.

Jennifer Johnson 38:54

That's been great advice. Great advice. We're moving into what I call the final four. And it's four questions that I always ask all of my guests because I just am excited to hear the answers because I learn something every single time. Are you ready? I am. All right. What is your favorite book and what was it that made it stick with you?

Michelle Jacobik 39:17

Okay, so my favorite, okay, my favorite book. If I think about my favorite, I won't think about the most recent because I'm an avid reader. Um, I will say never eat alone by Keith Farazzi. Never eat alone. It moved me from being the woman or business owner that would walk in the room, expecting that I was going to leave with business, or like what's in it for me, right? I had this posture in my early 30s. I mean, obviously, I, you know, bought the company that I worked for. I had all of these employees. I had a $17,000 a month loan payment, an $11,000 a week payroll. I was like, I need to get business when I walked in a room, right? But that posture of walking in the room is so like off-putting, right? It's even more off-putting now than it ever was. And I yeah, 25 years ago, that was my posture until I read Never Eat Alone. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like it is about building relationships, right? It is about being useful and helpful to somebody else's journey and being part of that and knowing that that's how the world works. The magic of it is synchronicities and the connections and the ability to breathe life into somebody else's dream and vision. So that would be, I think, of all of my books, and I have so many favorite books, that would be one of my favorites for sure.

Jennifer Johnson 40:42

I've read that. I'm gonna have to go back and read it again because I might do the same. Yeah. You have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you find yourself going back to time and time again.

Michelle Jacobik 40:55

Uh probably two. I'll share one of my own and then I'm gonna share one that um my readers quote, because you know, when e-readers read your book, they highlight and I can see the highlights. And so one of my favorite books, uh, one of my favorite quotes in the Path of Prophets is you can be profitable at the expense of your you could be profitable at the expense of your life, or you can be profitable in support of it.

Jennifer Johnson 41:17

That's great.

Michelle Jacobik 41:18

That's one of my favorite quotes, right? Because it is a choice, right? Whether we want to be profitable, right? Because I built the monster and literally like my family got crumbs, right? I was the mom at the games who was always on the phone answering calls, da-da-da, acting like I wasn't working. And the truth was I was always working, right? I and so yeah, I was profitable at the expense of my life, not profitable in support of it. So I think that's one. The second one um that I love is don't let blind people proofread your vision, right? Oh, I've heard yet. That's mine. That's mine. Don't let blind people proofread your vision. So it may not be politically correct today, right? But the truth is that we have so many people in our circle, family members,

Books, Quotes, And The Doubt Ritual

Michelle Jacobik 41:59

friends, that just don't get it. We're entrepreneurs, they aren't gonna get it. We think they're gonna be our customers, they we think they're gonna be our raving fans, we think they're gonna share out our stuff. The truth is they can't see what you see. So you have to make sure that the people that are in your front row, I've been telling my kids are in almost in my daughter's 31, my son's 25, be careful who you put in your front row. There's only one front row in the arena. Don't discard people, so to speak, right? They can go in the other bleachers, other other seats in the bleachers, but who you put in that front row is so important, right? So don't let blind blind people proofread your vision. Get around people that are big dreamers and that are gonna support you and breathe life into you and see the light that you're that you are in the world, not somebody that wants to blow out your candle or darken the room when you walk in.

Jennifer Johnson 42:50

That's fabulous. What is one habit or practice that has changed your life for the better?

Michelle Jacobik 43:00

Hard question, I know. Okay. This is what came up for me intuitively. So I have an appointment with my voice of doubt every Friday at 410. Every Friday. Um, you know, the voice that says, Oh my god, I have to talk on Jen's podcast today, and I have no idea whether we're gonna like, oh my god, what if what if I don't bring value? The voice that just it's that voice of doubt, right? The barking dogs. It's um a voice that says, I have a talk tomorrow to a group of 400 people, and am I going to suck? Is my tech gonna work? All the things, right? What if I disappoint them? What if I disappoint the host, right? What if insert whatever? I literally started this practice back in 2019 when all of the visibility stuff was scaring the crap out of me, right? When I was being called to come into more spaces to have more conversations, right? Remember, I owned an insurance agency and while I had 7,000 clients, I did that one on one, right? Or in board meetings, and it was like not so visible. And um That was really scary for me. And so I had in order to continue to be in mission and in order to continue to do big things and make the impact that I want to make in the world, I have to stop the barking dog so I can keep moving. So here's what happens when it starts, and it starts on Monday at four o'clock, or it starts on Tuesday morning at nine, because I know I'm having this podcast with you, whatever, whatever it is that week, right? Some weeks that some weeks I don't hear it, but there's always spaces where I do. I simply say, you have to come back Friday at 4 10. I have no room for you right now. And here's what happens on my phone Friday at 4 10. I don't care if I'm hosting an event, my alarm will go off. And I'll joke about it because I talk about this inside of my inner circles, and I'll say, What is that? And they're like, Oh, the voice of doubt. Yes, I give myself 20 minutes between 4'10 and 4:30 to let that voice have its space. And here's what happens: by the time the alarm goes off, most times Friday at 4'10, when I'm thinking about what was, what were the thoughts, what were the fears, the doubts, the things that it was saying, it's already, I've already bypassed it. Like I took action and I executed. So there is no voice, right? It's like, oh, you were wrong, right? And where there is time where where something might keep coming up, I have 20 minutes to journal about it, work it out, see if any of the tools that I have, whether it's meditation, visualization, anything that I need to do, writing down the evidence that says that this isn't true, right? Like, is it true is one of my favorite questions. Um, having that 20 minutes is everything. So that is probably the biggest habit, uh, or I would say practice or ritual. I like the word ritual over routine, um, that has changed my life for the better. And I think that sharing it here hopefully will help somebody else as well.

Jennifer Johnson 45:46

I that is so great. I have never heard anyone say that before. And I think that added a great amount of value to our listeners because they're probably going, oh my gosh, I'm totally gonna do that. And it could be whatever time works for you, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And my final question is if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?

Michelle Jacobik 46:09

I would say I would want to have dinner with Wayne Dyer. I love Wayne Dyer. You know, he passed on, but he had been a true mentor and a guide to me for 20 plus years. Uh, he moved me from that Tony Robbins, you know, goal, goal, goal, hustle, hustle, hustle into, and I loved it because I feel like Tony moved at the same time that I did. He moved into also a holistic place of it, can't be all about the, you know, crushing your goals. It's more, you know, his NLP and all that. So um, Wayne Dyer, I I still listen to him almost daily. I would love to sit down and have dinner and have one-on-one conversation with him about my work and the bigger impact that I want to make and literally just get his one-on-one guidance. So he would be the person that I think that comes top of mind for me.

Jennifer Johnson 46:54

That would be a great conversation. Great for certain. Michelle, this has been a uh joy to have you on. You provided immense value to our listeners today, and I appreciate that very much as I know they do as well. For our listeners who want to learn more about your path to profits and what you do, how can they get in touch with you?

Michelle Jacobik 47:16

Yeah, so the easiest way to find me is uh simply follow me on socials at Michelle Jacobic on Instagram, Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, right? I have a weekly Path to Profits newsletter where I share tips and tricks and different things about business. And then visit my website, right? If you are interested in getting some support around, you know, the business consultancy, the financial foundations piece, and just getting out of those weeds, you could set up a call with me. There's a link on the website. And again, it's just Michelle Jacobic.com. I try to keep things pretty simple. And then grab the book. You know, um, the book is if you have a Spotify premium subscription, you can listen to the audiobook for free. Many people have audible credits. Go download your credits and cancel the subscription or pause it until you've listened to the things that are there. But you can grab the audio version if that's easy for you. A lot of entrepreneurs are busy. And, you know, while the book you can listen to it, the theory will change your life. But the exercises are the place, the intersection of where the transformation happens. And at each at the end of each chapter, there's exercises for you to be able to implement the vision, the flow, and the grow. And if reading isn't your jam, come to my event in November, which is actually going to be here in Naples that I'm hosting. And it's where I actually walk you through all of the pillars where you get to meet other entrepreneurs, but go through the whole business planning for the next year, the upcoming year. And we're on year eight. So, you know, if somebody's listening to this in two years, guess what? Envision will still be happening. It just might be in another town. Yeah.

Jennifer Johnson 48:45

Fabulous. Thank you so much, Michelle, for joining us today. And thank you to all of my listeners. I will see you again. Thanks, Jen.