Mastering Profit First: A Game-Changing System for Bar Financial Success with Kasey Anton

Are you tired of wondering where all your bar's money went at the end of each month? Kasey Anton joins us to show how the Profit First system is transforming hospitality businesses by giving every dollar a specific purpose.

Learn why traditional bank balance accounting fails bar owners and how a properly structured multiple-account system can provide immediate visibility into your business's true financial health.

In today's episode:

• Understand why P&Ls don't tell the whole story of your business's financial health
• See how segregating funds can prevent common financial pitfalls
• Discover why treating your business as its own entity is crucial for success

Listen now to learn how Profit First can transform your bar's finances.

Get in touch with Kasey:
Spark Business Consulting
ProfitFirst4Restaurants.com
Profit First for Restaurants on Amazon

Learn More:
Email Chris
Schedule a Strategy Session
Bar Business Nation Facebook Group
The Bar Business Podcast Website
Chris' Book 'How to Make Top-Shelf Profits in the Bar Business'

Thank you to our show sponsors, SpotOn and Starfish. SpotOn's modern, cloud-based POS system allows bars to increase team productivity and provides the reporting you need to make smart financial decisions. Starfish works with your bookkeeping software using AI to help you make data-driven decisions and maximize your profits while giving you benchmarking data to understand how you compare to the industry at large.
**We are a SpotOn affiliate and earn commissions from the link above.

A podcast for bar, pub, tavern, nightclub, and restaurant owners, managers, and hospitality professionals, covering essential topics like bar inventory, marketing strategies, restaurant financials, and hospitality profits to help increase b...

Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:01.568)
So for all of you that have watched or listened, I should say, to the podcast for a long time, you know I love systems. I love data and I'm all about different systems and different ways to do them. However, one thing that's always true is that different systems work for different people. And there are some systems that are out there that other people love that I just have never fallen in love with and I don't use. One of those is Profit First. And Profit First is a cash management and bookkeeping system that probably most of you have heard about. It's been really popular in the last, I should say, probably 10, 20 years.

And so I wanted to bring on somebody that absolutely knows ProfitFirst and that can share that system and give us that viewpoint because I could never represent it in a positive light just because it's not my thing. And so with that in mind, joining us today is Kasey Anton. Kasey has over 20 years experience working in and with hospitality companies. She's the owner of Spark Business Consulting, which is focused on doing bookkeeping services and financial services mostly for hospitality companies.

I think she does some other things as well, but we're talking hospitality today. And she is the author of Profit First for Restaurants. So if anybody knows this, it is her. She knows it backwards and forwards. So thank you so much for being here today, Kasey.

Kasey Anton (01:11.042)
Thank you, this is exciting. Let's get going, I'm excited to challenge you on this, this is great.

Chris Schneider (01:16.628)
Well, and I'm excited too, because it's not often that I have somebody on that is in the bookkeeping accounting space where we can kind of spar a little bit. So this should be some fun. But before we dive into profit first, I wanted to set the framework here, because I think while we use different systems, we both have the same two biggest problems, essentially, that we're trying to solve for. And I'm just going to throw these at you and then let you dig into them a little bit. The first one being P &Ls are not cash flow. And the second one being

Your bank balance is not how much money you have to spend.

Kasey Anton (01:49.792)
Amen, but both of those, 100%, yes. Yeah, I talk about that a lot in the book, don't I? Both of those things. P &L is not your cashflow. I think that was a great way that you just put it. I didn't phrase it that way. That's a perfect way to put it. Because I talk about the bottom line on the P &L, right? Where I find literally in the thousands and thousands of business owners that I have met with over the last 16 years that have had Spark, and before that just owning restaurants and having colleagues in the industry,

Chris Schneider (01:56.51)
You do.

Chris Schneider (02:06.912)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (02:19.726)
Everyone looks at their P &L pretty much the same and it's the wrong way. They look at it, they look at the bottom line, if it's in the black and it's positive, they're like, oh sweet, yay me, and I'm gonna go keep doing more what I just did without really connecting the dots there. And if it's negative, they're like, oh, shit, that sucks. All right, I guess I'll go do better. Without really any type of framework or actionable things to go do, what I want everyone to realize is that amount is representative of what your business is doing, but it's not the entire story.

You need the whole story. So if it's in the black and it's positive, that's good sign, but there's a whole other story happening on your balance sheet. So the two reports together, they link together, they work together, but they're not mutually exclusive. So for example, if you make any type of loan payments or you have accounts payable, you have a credit card that has a balance, the payments that you're making toward those things are not represented on your P&L.

Chris Schneider (02:49.172)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (03:17.794)
So if that bottom line says $5,000 on your P &L, but you make $3,000, $4,000 in loan payments, then really your cash flow is gonna be closer to $1,000 or less if there's more activity happening in your balance sheet than you might be aware of. So you have to really look at both things or just look at a cash flow statement, but honestly.

Chris Schneider (03:28.058)
and

Kasey Anton (03:36.558)
I mean, we have right now currently about 275 clients. Not one of them wants to look at a cash flow statement. I don't blame you. I don't like them either. So if you're not going to look at that, then you need to look at both the P and L, the balance sheet and understand like really what's going on there. And if it's negative, that's not just a bad report card. That money has been funded, right? It's not just like, oh, shame on me. It's okay. Where did you fund that loss? And the funding comes from debt.

Chris Schneider (03:45.236)
Mm-hmm

Kasey Anton (04:04.618)
AP balances, credit card balances. that understanding, if I can get business owners to understand that, and that's like 50-50, maybe even less if I can get them to understand that, but that understanding, it's not, like that negative has more meaning than I think that they apply to it. So that's really important. So then the reason why I love bank balance accounting, where I like to leverage it, right? So I have honestly, again, and all the business owners I've ever worked with, I have not found one.

Chris Schneider (04:14.259)
Right?

Chris Schneider (04:20.082)
So that's really important. So then, reason why.

Chris Schneider (04:28.224)
So I am honestly against all the...

Kasey Anton (04:34.018)
that doesn't practice bank balance accounting, which is you log into your bank account, you look at the balances and you make decisions based off the balance. Whether or not you have one, two, even three accounts, depending on what you use them for, you're just making decisions based off the balance. And that is what gets everybody into trouble. Even if you run a super profitable business, even if you're printing money, if you are practicing bank balance accounting, you could be doing way, way better.

Chris Schneider (04:50.77)
Mm-hmm

Kasey Anton (05:01.268)
just by segregating the money a little bit and really understanding what your percentages are, where you're right and where you need to fix first and where you can kind of lay back on and be like, okay, I think I'm doing okay over here. I don't have to worry about scheduling or whatever it is. So bank balance accounting can be leveraged, but I've never seen a small business owner not use it ever.

Chris Schneider (05:20.796)
When I and I think it Bank balance accounting the one thing that I always like to mention when that comes up is

know, some of the money in your bank is not yours. Right? Whether it's sales taxes or tips you owe your employees, some amount of that money in your bank account is legally not yours. And if you spend it, the government will come after you like crazy people and destroy your life. Yeah.

Kasey Anton (05:45.23)
Yeah, because that's no joke. are, those are, cause you're a trustee, right? So when it comes to payroll taxes, the money you take out of your employee's paycheck and you're supposed to file and pay to the government, the same with your meals or sales tax, the same with your tips. Because we all know, maybe not the business owner itself, but everyone else in the world, especially the IRS and your state government knows that that's not your money. You are the trustee. Therefore you have to, you own the responsibility of that. And when you play games,

You use that money thinking, I'll catch up and then you don't. That pisses everybody off, especially the government. And that's why there's no holds barred. They come at you hard when that happens.

Chris Schneider (06:24.542)
Yeah, and that I think is by far the biggest trap within bank balance accounting, let alone the fact that you're just gonna spend money you don't have, right? And then you're gonna have to come up with it somewhere else. So with that framework, fill us in a little bit on what exactly is Profit First?

Kasey Anton (06:29.43)
Yeah. Yep.

Kasey Anton (06:40.13)
Yeah, so Profit First, the original book, Profit First by Mike McCowitz came out I think 11 or 12 years ago now. And then it's one of the best-selling business books around because it works. And I think Mike had said last count was like half a million businesses worldwide were using it. I don't know where he gets that from because it works. It works for everyone. And it's simply leveraging what we just talked about, bank balance accounting by using bank accounts.

So what happens is here's the simple core version that Mike talks about in his original book, right? You have five accounts, you have an income account, and all of your sales just get dropped in like a big pile of money. Imagine everyone paid you in cash and you put a big pile of money on the floor. That's how I like to imagine it. So that's your income account. Then you have a profit account, an owner's pay, owner's taxes, and an OpEx for the basic version.

So profit, we take that right off the top. Why? Because profit is so incredibly important to a business, but businesses don't really get that. think overall, business owners kind of think that like, that's like a nice to have. It's, you know, if I'm lucky, you know, maybe I'll have it. No, no, no. Profit. If you don't have profit, you have debt. You literally have one or the other. And if you don't want to have debt and you shouldn't, you should not, that's not fun. Then you need profit. So it's a must have.

Chris Schneider (07:52.799)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (07:59.63)
Profit is the only way to service debt. If you have any type of debt in your business, it's the only way to grow or to buy an asset, like to buy a refrigerator. So you need profit. So we take that off the top. Do we take 90 %? No, I wish. No, but you take whatever you can, 1%, 2%, 5%, 10, whatever you can for your business model. We take that, put it the profit account. And there you go. Profit is money to bank account. You point it out, oh, there's my profit. That's how it should work. So we have that. Then the owners pay because we don't want the owner falling into that trap of,

This business has become a noose around my neck. I hate showing up. I hate my life. I hate everything, which we see a lot of, We want the business to take care of you. You developed it. You created it out of thin air. You deserve to be rewarded. And you're the biggest employee, the number one employee. So we take care of the owner and the owner's taxes, right? Because profit is a taxable event. So an owner's pay, depending on how you pay yourself, but that's a separate conversation. We just want to cover the taxes because we don't want the owners freaking out.

Chris Schneider (08:30.944)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Schneider (08:47.998)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (08:55.886)
when April 15th, which is actually today, we're recording, rolls around and they're like, oh my God, I know what? We don't want any more burden on a business owner than you already have. So we take care of that. And then the last of the five accounts is OpEx, operating expenses. And the biggest amount will go there, no doubt. The biggest amount. Depending on your business model, maybe 90 % goes there, hope not. Maybe it's 80%, whatever it is. So now...

Chris Schneider (09:12.344)
Sure.

Kasey Anton (09:20.12)
When we're talking about bank balance accounting, when you log in to your online banking screen, instead of seeing one or two, you'll see five accounts, all nicknamed. And the top one will be the income. And hopefully you'll see a big pile of money in there, or any pile of money, but hopefully it's big, right? And then based off percentages that are custom to your business and the model and how it works, you're just gonna transfer that money. So you're gonna zero out that income account and you're gonna put money in profit, owner's pay, owner's taxes and OPEX.

So now you can look at the OpEx account and you can make those shady decisions, right? You can make the decisions on what to pay. You're not going to, instead with the one account, you're just going to pay everything. This little big pile of money. Here's a fistful for you. Here's a fistful for you. And before you know it, you're like, shit, it's all gone. So that's the basic version that is literally transformed.

Chris Schneider (09:49.984)
Mm-hmm

Kasey Anton (10:07.118)
so many businesses. I wrote the book, Profit First for Restaurants. It's an iteration. So I took the basic version and I customized it for restaurants, bars, food service, because that's the model. they read, if any business needs this, it's this business, in my opinion.

Chris Schneider (10:18.4)
I've had a business with this.

Well, and I'm with you on that because it's like I said, it's a different system than I normally would use. But we see a lot of these basic bookkeeping issues, these basic problems exist in restaurants. And that's what, frankly, I think contributes to some of the failure rate among a lot of independents.

Kasey Anton (10:40.974)
100 % it does, yeah. Oh, and there's so, I mean, I know I get really excited about this, but this, not only will it like put guardrails up around your financial model, your model could be 30 % food and beverage costs, 30 % payroll, know, 30 % op-ex and then 10 % profit. Of course, there's no owners paying taxes in there, but you know, that could be your model.

Chris Schneider (10:59.752)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (11:04.781)
That could have been how you wrote your business plan, right? And then you're thinking you're gonna get a 10 % bottom line, right? And that's how everything is gonna fit. And if that's the case, then great, let's put the money where the mouth is and let's create bank accounts and put 30 cents on every dollar in that food and beverage account. That's you gotta pay all your food and beverage vendors out of. 30 cents on every dollar into that payroll account, you're gonna have your payroll sweep cut. 30 cents on every dollar, right? So we're saying, okay, if this is what you're running, we're gonna keep you in line by

Chris Schneider (11:21.659)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (11:33.602)
but only giving you that amount of money. And guess what? You go onto your payroll website, you go to run payroll, and then you get that sweep number. It's okay, total payroll being pulled, is this amount? And then you look at that payroll bank account, you go, shit, I don't have enough money. Well, then you're not running a 30 % payroll, are you? And that's okay. I mean, it's not okay. But it's okay that you know that, right? You can fix it immediately or that day, you can start looking at hours, whatever. You could fix it, but here's the thing.

Chris Schneider (11:51.069)
Right.

Kasey Anton (12:03.688)
Now you get to make a conscious decision of how you're going to support that payroll cap because you can't short payroll obviously. We're not going to bounce payroll. We're not playing that game. You can't. So where is it going to come from? Your food and beverage account? Okay, now you might be shorting some vendors. You know where that goes. Like you can make a decision, but you know where that goes. You're going to short OPEX. What does that mean? You don't pay your insurance. You don't pay your rent. Yikes. I don't know. Maybe. Or do you take it out of that profit account?

Chris Schneider (12:11.718)
Right.

Chris Schneider (12:24.585)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (12:31.288)
Probably because without you even knowing it, that's exactly where it's coming from now. But just having that visual in dollar signs, in a bank account, money on a screen that you can see, it just changes how you operate your business.

Chris Schneider (12:35.089)
Right.

Chris Schneider (12:45.566)
Well, and I can see that. Now, one of the things that has always scared me about ProfitFirst personally is it's a lot of bank accounts. And I have, you know, I obviously work with the same sort of folks that you do. And I find that a lot of times it's, there's so much stuff going on in a bar or restaurant that there isn't, things get dropped. And not intentionally, but just because there's not enough time in a day for a lot of owners, especially when they're getting systems in place and really optimizing their businesses.

Kasey Anton (12:51.118)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Schneider (13:14.068)
So with that many bank accounts, do you have any tricks for how to juggle them, how to make sure these transfers happen? How do you advise your clients to make sure that they aren't falling short on that process to keep the system running?

Kasey Anton (13:27.746)
Yeah, so I I strongly believe, and actually I know for a fact with all of the restaurants and bars that we work with, that having these bank accounts simplifies your bookkeeping a lot more than not having them. And here's why. I mean, one, I would recommend going into your bank accounts weekly.

Or more, if your cash flow is really tight, then you might want to do it more often. It's okay, it kind of gamifies the whole thing, it makes it fun. But I would say either Monday or Tuesday, when those weekend deposits hit usually, you go in with the biggest amount, and we're going to allocate those through. And that whole process takes about five minutes, maybe less. So that's five minutes of your time, but it's you intentionally moving your money, viewing your balances, and sticking in your head, now you know what you have to spend.

Chris Schneider (13:55.625)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (14:16.782)
So that to me is a genius in that alone. But when it comes to the bookkeeping, mean, so we're QuickBooks Pro advisors here, so we pretty much exclusively use QuickBooks QuickBooks Online now, they're getting rid of the desktop version. So it's simplifies the bookkeeping because if we have tied all of our bank accounts, let's say to the bank that you're using, so they're syncing.

Chris Schneider (14:24.352)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (14:37.204)
Every time, when I go into that vendor or cost of goods sold account, I know that everything coming out of there is going to be to a vendor. So it's like all food and beverage purchase. It's easy for me to understand. Even if I'm a novice bookkeeper, if it's in this account, I pretty much know where it's going in it. And you can set up rules and it makes it nice and easy. The payroll counts, the payroll count, if you have one, like that's pretty simple. The OpEx, it really kind of like funnels.

how your money's going, so it just makes your bookkeeping that much cleaner and simpler because instead of everything just being this one giant platter and you figuring out, this was a food vendor, wait a minute, this goes to a tips check, you know what I mean? When we segregate it into its own account, you already know, I know what this is gonna be about, I know how to research, I know what this is, and so it just makes it cleaner and simpler, so I love it.

Chris Schneider (15:23.934)
Well, and something that makes me think about is the fact that one of the problems I see a lot for bars and restaurants out there, they have a bookkeeper that is great. OK, but they're doing it once a month, right? They're getting statements on the 20th for the prior month. So everything they're looking at is three weeks old. They're never working with data that's actually actionable because it's current. So by setting somebody up with this system, it doesn't matter if your bookkeeper is doing the bookkeeping.

once every six months almost, right? Because you're seeing it day in and day out. You're moving that money and it allows the owner to kind of shortcut the bookkeeping in a sense, I guess is what I'm thinking here.

Kasey Anton (16:02.254)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. know, thanks for like taking away my business, but yeah, no, you're right. Like it absolutely can't. It is certainly better than not having it. Yeah, 100 % because what it is, it's a living, breathing budget for your money almost. So you're budgeting every dollar that comes in, you're budgeting it to, you're giving intention, you're putting a job to every dollar. So you can be running the business with this system.

Chris Schneider (16:06.784)
You're right!

Chris Schneider (16:18.33)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (16:28.94)
without necessarily needing that P &L on April 2nd for the first court. you don't necessarily, I love financials and it tells a bigger story, but for this industry, cash is king more so than anything, nickels and dimes, pennies.

Chris Schneider (16:44.201)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (16:46.528)
and nickels and dimes is what we deal with. Therefore, using a cash management system like this one is way more important than having a great bookkeeper that'll come in, eventually reconcile, blah, blah. You still need that, but you certainly don't need it necessarily every week, every two weeks. I like monthly, but you could even go quarterly with a bookkeeper if you're using this system and you're following it because it is just a budget that's constantly evolving with you and your business.

Chris Schneider (17:12.926)
Yeah, and for all of you listening, you guys have heard me say multiple times, I think you should do your own books and you should do them weekly. If you don't want to do that, because that sounds like a pain in the ass, you might want to talk to Kasey, because it sounds like her system works the same way, but could be a little bit easier. I still am all about people doing their own books just because I feel like that gives you a great connection. But this system builds that same kind of connection. And a lot simpler system than having to learn QuickBooks and do everything.

Kasey Anton (17:23.18)
Yeah.

Kasey Anton (17:26.734)
Yeah.

Kasey Anton (17:39.374)
100%. I would never recommend that anybody do their own books. That'd be easy for me to say, but it literally is an entire other skillset. Like you pretty much have to learn how to be an accountant to do your own books accurately and correctly. There's certain things that you can do, definitely. But the whole thing, like when you buy an asset and how you're to add that to the books and the, I mean, things like that, we've just seen messes come through of people trying to do their own books when it comes to.

Chris Schneider (17:48.351)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (18:04.888)
kind of the bigger end stuff and that can create a snowball effect. I prefer someone who's a professional unless that's your jam and you're just really good at it. I mean, I did my own books at my restaurant. I will say that I did that, but I think I was one of the few that could do it right. But I, you know, I trained.

Chris Schneider (18:19.528)
Well, and I always did my own too, right? And maybe that's just my own internal bias. But my thing is, if you can, yes, it's a pain in the ass to learn. Yes, there's a whole bunch to get your head around. But if you can actually learn it, then you make better financial decisions, period, because you understand how the money works. But Profit First also allows you to gain that without having to gain all that knowledge, without having to put all that time into the effort into studying it. Yeah.

Kasey Anton (18:33.006)
True. I can't argue with that. You're right. Yeah.

Kasey Anton (18:43.736)
Yes.

And it's immediate, yeah.

Chris Schneider (18:48.736)
So that's really, you know, you're kind of selling me on this as we go along. I feel like maybe I should.

Kasey Anton (18:51.63)
Yeah, you should do it. You could it for your home life. You could do it for anything. You really should at least try it because it's like, you know, I think I've told this story. I don't know if we talked about when you and I first talked, but I, um, when I became a profit for a certified, this was almost 10 years ago. Now it's one of the first, they make you do it in your own business. Right. And I own a bookkeeping accounting services business.

Chris Schneider (19:10.58)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (19:13.262)
My profit margins were pretty good. If I was doing okay, it fine. But I'm like, all right, whatever. I'll implement it in my business. I was already doing fine. This just catapulted how well my business, it was shocking to me given what I do for a living.

Chris Schneider (19:25.504)
Absolutely.

Kasey Anton (19:27.374)
That just having, giving, like literally, just giving every single dollar a job that came in, and I put a lot toward profit to see like, can I manage this profit percentage? Can I really cut my opex? Can I slice my payroll and still offer this great service? Like, just gamified it, and I was like, wow, I could, now I'm gonna go up to this percentage and this percentage, and it completely changed my business, and I wasn't even expecting it. I did this to service our clients, not for myself.

but it was a game changer for myself.

Chris Schneider (19:58.996)
Well, and that's a great thing. it does seem like for a lot of folks, this could be a great answer for them. Now, speaking a little bit more broadly here, because you have a lot of folks that come to you that are not on a profit-first system, I'm sure. When you get these clients, there are all sorts of places in how they're managing their stuff. what is, is there one or two giant mistakes you see people make on a regular basis?

that make you want to bang your head against the wall when it comes to financial management and bookkeeping.

Kasey Anton (20:31.712)
Yeah, you're really, I mean, there's a number one coming right out at me, probably because I was late last night, I was sending an email back to a new restaurant client that had come on. And it's not uncommon that I see this. So what happens, especially like if they implement the profit first system before their business is ready for it, what happens is,

Chris Schneider (20:53.002)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (20:54.766)
You implement the system. Just say you read the book and you didn't talk to a professional yet or do a really good assessment of where the money is currently going in your business, because that's where we start. We start with where your money is because we don't want to blow your shit up, right? We're like, we're going to start with you and we're going to slowly make changes to increase your percentages and get better. But some people try and do it on their own. So they'll put 10 % right off the top to profit, even though they're not a profitable company.

And then they'll put like, you know, 25 % of the payroll, but they're running 38%. So this is what they do. And then when the things start to hit, right? They're like, my God, there's not enough money there. I just overdrafted without actually like checking, you know, like, and then they overdraft and then they swipe the money out of every single account and they put it back in the other account and say, proper first doesn't work. This happens all the time. So that's like number one, it happens all the time, but proper first doesn't work. No, I hate to say this, but I'm going to say it. Your business doesn't work.

Like it doesn't work. Like you're not running, you're putting 20 % in an apparel account, you're running 38%. Like I can't make that money appear out of nowhere. So there's that. And then, you know, I think to going to her just without even proper first involved, this new client, which we haven't set up yet, he wants to do it. He was, he's very itchy. He's like, wants to do it. like, Oh honey, you're not ready yet. Because we were doing his books. We closed the first quarter.

Chris Schneider (21:51.39)
Right.

Kasey Anton (22:16.462)
And he seems to think like, oh, March was great. We've got the payroll down. Like we're running three in the kitchen. We're golden. It's going to be like, you know, 32%. It was 54%. was 54%. He thinks he's running it as if it's 32%. I say, no, it's 54. Here you go. And then what they do is they look to tell me why I'm wrong. And I'm not trying to be right. I'm just saying, okay, well, here are the two payrolls we ran in March.

Chris Schneider (22:27.936)
he's running it and it's 32%. I say no, it's before here you go and then what they do is they look to tell me while I'm playing wrong. And I'm not trying to be right, I'm just saying okay, the two perils we ran in March, tell me.

Kasey Anton (22:44.302)
tell me what didn't belong on there. I'm just tying to the bank account, tying to your payroll. I'm not making it up. I'm just tying to the numbers. And the thing is they spend so much time going, no, no, no, that can't be right. No, no, no. And then what I found in the history of this is when that happens and it's pretty common, they're like, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. Okay, I'm gonna move on to the next thing. So they didn't bother to fix the 54 % payroll because they can't figure it out. They just are gonna live with the fact that I'm wrong.

Chris Schneider (22:48.552)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (23:13.666)
and then they're gonna go work on a new dish for the menu. This happens a lot.

Chris Schneider (23:17.743)
Mm-hmm

Well, and I see this a lot too. think there's a... I don't know about your experience and how much you'll agree with me on this, but there is data and data is just a fact, right? And to run a business, it has to be all fact based. And too many people get too emotional about their facts, right? And rather than just say, you know what, my food cost is, my labor cost is 54%. Great. It doesn't matter. Well, it does matter why, but...

It doesn't matter why to accept the fact that it's 54%. Right? X plus y equals z. It is what it is. And then you have to figure out why and you have to fix that and dig into all the issues. But just because your brain thinks something and makes an assumption does not make it a fact.

Kasey Anton (24:09.07)
Yeah, and the numbers don't lie. mean, assuming that have a good bookkeeper or you're or you yourself happen to be great and you reconciled and you know for a fact that we 1000 % stand behind our numbers. We know we're right. Like the numbers aren't lying. I think you're lying to yourself. That's okay. But let's but let's get back to the numbers here. Here's what was interesting. You know what I did last night though in that email and I actually was kind of shocked that this made sense to him, right? So I just did a cutout of his P&L just the just the payroll part. We break down the payroll from the bar.

Chris Schneider (24:18.964)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Schneider (24:35.893)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (24:37.55)
and the food and the kitchen, whatever. I said, here's what you ran. Here's the 50%, here's how it here's what you paid in kitchen, here's what you paid in front of the house, blah, blah, blah. I said, if you ran at a 30 % based off these sales, this is what you would have paid out. And it was just different. was like, would have paid out like 22,000 in your cooks. You would have paid out $5,000 in your bar. So basically, if you want a budget, this is the budget, assuming these are gonna be your sales.

Chris Schneider (25:04.084)
Mm-hmm.

Kasey Anton (25:04.44)
And it was just the visual. just put like a side by side. Here you go. Here's what you are running. Here's your budget. Here's what you can spend. And like good luck cutting $10,000 out of your payroll in one month. I know that's hard. I don't mean to be the bad guy. This is just numbers and facts. And, that visual for me is like, my God. It's like, it's like something clicked. And he went, I mean, his email last, you know, midnight last night to me was like, this makes so much sense to me. Thank you. I got it. Now we'll see if he got it. But he, that's what he said. And I was like, how is...

Chris Schneider (25:14.773)
Yeah.

Chris Schneider (25:25.716)
This makes so much sense to me. Thank you, I got

Right.

Kasey Anton (25:32.386)
So just interesting the way you present things. like, how did he get that rather than everything else? You know, the other three hours of meetings we've had trying to tell him about this, but he got it in a screenshot of me just showing it. It was interesting.

Chris Schneider (25:42.45)
Yeah. Well, it's, it's, I mean, it kind of goes back to the whole thing where where profit first in my brain don't always get along well, because it's different people see things different ways, right? And that's, that's, that's the example of it with a client there and seeing that labor cost. You know, the other thing too, is to your point, it is really hard when you go to somebody to go, hey, look, your labor costs, you're running $10,000 too high a month, and you need to cut your labor costs by 25%.

Kasey Anton (25:54.252)
Yeah, exactly.

Chris Schneider (26:11.796)
And that is a very difficult thing to do. Now, that doesn't change though. And I think sometimes on the accounting end, we get vilified a little bit because we're the ones that go in and like, yeah, you're not making money because you pay your people too much and you spend too much on your food and you need to find cheaper food and pay people less. And then we're the bad guys. When in actuality, and you made this point at the very top, if you don't have profit, you don't have a business.

Kasey Anton (26:30.381)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris Schneider (26:40.634)
You have a hobby that you're paying for.

Kasey Anton (26:42.584)
And you're digging yourself a hole in debt without a doubt. Yep.

Chris Schneider (26:44.542)
Yeah. And if you want to have a hobby, if you want to own a bar or restaurant as a hobby and put 10 grand a year into it and just kind of understand it doesn't make money, great. Like you are perfectly okay doing that. If that's your thing. But right. But don't try to run a business and run it as a hobby. So with that, because we're getting towards the end of the time, is there anything else that we have not touched on that you think people absolutely need to be aware of and know?

Kasey Anton (26:56.354)
Sure. Just know what that means, yeah.

Kasey Anton (27:04.59)
100 % right, yes. That's dangerous.

Yeah.

Kasey Anton (27:15.694)
Yeah, I'd say the final piece I'd like to just add, especially when we're talking about this example of this bar restaurant running so high in the payroll is, yeah, it's not an easy thing for me to just say, like, listen, you need to cut $10,000 a month. And like flipping at me like, go off my merry way and eat bonbons. I understand that's probably more than one person's job. I get it. But here's the thing. Let's just set that aside. Let's set the emotions and the human connection aside. That's important, but I want to set aside for a second.

everything comes down to your business model. Everything comes down to the model. So when I was looking at the history of this place, he's around this time of year, they're doing about 92,000 a month, right? So that's what we have. Like, hey, if you can spike that up to 120, 130, 140 a month, like that, like you're turning on a faucet, then maybe this payroll will be okay. But what are the chances of that happening? And I'm not saying, well,

If I put out a really good post, maybe I'll know like you have to like know that you're going to spike it up. And I don't know anyone that can turn on a faucet like that. Right. So like, let's come back down to reality and just know that your business brings in about $92,000 a month in sales. that's, that's not bad, but that's what we have to work with. So if you take 30 % or whatever the model is, if he's running 25 % in food and he was, which is great, then maybe you can do 35 in payroll. I'll give you 35. Maybe you can do that. Great.

Chris Schneider (28:26.547)
Not at all.

Kasey Anton (28:38.734)
But then take 35 % of your sales of 92 and that's what you have to play with. So figure it out. Maybe everyone goes part-time or maybe you don't need that like high-power GM. Maybe you don't. Like I understand that's a hard decision, but it all comes back to the model. Your business either can afford it or it can't. So the business, I just feel like people need to treat the business like it's its own like person. It is its own entity. It should be like its own person that you want to build up on top of profit.

Chris Schneider (28:55.637)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Schneider (29:02.837)
Yeah.

Kasey Anton (29:07.714)
Without it, you're just beating it to death with death. So, that's it is.

Chris Schneider (29:12.288)
That is a great thing to end on because that is one of the most true statements. And it's something that a lot of people don't pay attention to because it is its own person and you are either building it up or beating it down and you need to be aware of that. So with that, since we got to wrap up, where can people go to learn more about you and Spark Consulting and get in contact with?

Kasey Anton (29:24.662)
Yeah. Yep.

Kasey Anton (29:34.178)
Yes, awesome. So we have a great revamped website, tons of information, lots of freebies at sparkbusinessconsulting.com. Also for the book, if you get the book, and I highly recommend it, it's so fun. It has a lot of great stories, both sad stories and really, really positive stories. It's Profit First for Restaurants. We have a website with all free tools. If you do want to attempt to check it out or implement it yourself, and that website is Profit First, the number for restaurants.com, 

ProfitFirst4Restaurants.com. And that's how you can reach out to me either way.

Chris Schneider (30:08.255)
All right, cool. So we'll put those links in the show notes as always. So if you're listening, just scroll down and they'll be right there for you. With that, our time is up. So Kasey, thank you so much for being here. This has been a great conversation and look forward to talking to you more in the future.

Kasey Anton (30:23.018)
I hope so. Thank you so much for having me. This was great.