Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika

Ep#73: Increasing Profits: How Kermit Jones Transforms Small Business Success

• Susannah Hodges at Village Centre Press

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Kamel Alliance & Coaching helps small to mid-sized business owners dramatically increase their profits—without spending more on marketing or advertising. 

Using a proven, data-driven system, the analyze more than 40 areas of your business to uncover hidden profit opportunities and deliver a customized roadmap for growth. Clients typically see 3x to 8x ROI, and they back their work with a no-risk, results-guaranteed approach.

In addition to profit acceleration, Kamel Alliance offers executive coaching, leadership development, and strategic consulting to help leaders build company cultures that align their values with their vision.

Whether you're seeking more clarity, better systems, or a healthier bottom line, they can help you stop winging it and start winning on purpose. As your perfect partner for leadership, Kamel Alliance helps you create more profit, more margin, and more time for what matters.

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.

Speaker 2:

Welcome. With me today is Kermit Jones, and he is a consultant with a firm called Camel Alliance. Welcome, Kermit.

Speaker 3:

Hello Susanna, it's great to be here. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. It's good to have you Tell us a little bit what Camel Alliance is. I looked at your website for a bit and it looks like you do a lot to help local or small businesses.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we kind of run the gamut on a few different things, but we primarily focus on small and mid-sized businesses to help business owners increase their profits. And we also do leadership development. I started in executive coaching and team development sort of stuff and leadership training and over time that's kind of shifted. I've had the privilege to work with Auburn University's Office of Professional and Teenage Education and the Alabama Department of Labor and the District Attorneys Association. All in kind of the big picture leadership grand scale. But on the local scale as far as here in Auburn, opelika, I focus on working with business owners.

Speaker 2:

Excellent and I think that's a valuable resource, because owning your own business and needing someone to talk to you and bounce ideas off and kind of work through problems is a really good partnership to have. But I would like to know more about you, kermit. What brought you into this type of service? What does your career journey look like?

Speaker 3:

We've only got 15 minutes. Suzanne, my journey has been a little bit unique. My history I actually I graduated the Naval Academy in 98 and became a naval officer, resigned my commission, became a chaplain, did that for a while, went into the reserves. I was a government employee. I've been a federal service employee for about a decade and change, and often on active duty different times. I've got about 18 years of total service and about three years ago, or a little bit more than that, right after COVID, my family and I were moving.

Speaker 3:

I was leaving my last mobilization and it's the last one I'll ever have because I'm too close to retirement at the moment and I was trying to look at like, what do I want to do? And so I left active duty, I quit my government job, I bought a house in Alabama, moved here with my family, never, never been, never been from Alabama. I had a daughter at Auburn at the time and that's pretty much the main indicator and I kind of look at this list, laundry list of certificates that I had accumulated over my career in working in leader development and coaching and that sort of stuff. And so I started Camel Alliance, and the camel actually stands for Carrie, abby, megan, emma Lauren, which is my wife, and four daughters and that's why it's with a K, and so that was kind of the. That was kind of the start and thankfully I was able to plug into Auburn's OPCE and work with some local businesses in the state and that kind of stuff on a few things.

Speaker 3:

But some people I had one person say, oh so you had a midlife crisis, and my response was actually I had a midlife clarity because I woke up and said you know what Wealth to me is enjoying what you do Like. When someone said what's it mean to be rich? I heard a heard a comedian, I think say it. He said if you get more money and you still want to keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, well, I like that. Uh, midlife clarity Uh, that is a very good description, I think, of what all of us go through. Uh, when you we get to a point where you know children are, you know, grown and left the house, and you have to sit down and think, what, what am I going to do for me?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, what do I want to be when I grow up?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, walk me through the process. You know, you get. You know, a partnership with a business owner. What?

Speaker 1:

does that look?

Speaker 2:

like. What does that look like? You coming alongside them and helping them. That's a. That is an excellent question.

Speaker 3:

You know you should consider doing a podcast for a living. So I, when COVID happened, I was, I just entered into the coaching realm and I actually got a business coaching certification way back when, and and I set it to the side when I came up and started doing the leadership stuff. And recently, a couple of actually fairly recently I really started talking to a friend of mine. He owns a business and he just he was very frustrated. He said I just feel like there should be more to it, it shouldn't be this hard. And he said we've got revenue. We don't. But but I don't have any money in my pocket, and and I just started kind of talking to him and then I was like, oh wait, I've got some training in this, and so then we kind of formalized it and so the bottom line is I can show any business owner the short version is, I can show any business owner at a minimum how to double their profits in the next 12 months without spending extra money on marketing or advertising.

Speaker 3:

Now that's kind of the shtick and people are like, oh, that sounds too good to be true, but it's actually. It's based on numbers, it's not based on magic and it's marginal utility theory. You're familiar, probably, with the idea of compounding interest, right? And so if you have a business that makes 10% net profit and they increase 12 areas and I start by focusing on 12 specific areas at 1.4% increase in 12 areas, they will double their profit in the next month. And if you do a 3% increase, which is, you know, that's almost keeping up with inflation, depending on what numbers you look at, a 3% increase in the 12 areas will actually triple their net profit.

Speaker 3:

So it's nothing, it's not some huge thing. It's really a matter of business. Owners are, um, they're they're burnout, they're exhausted, they're burning the candle at both ends and they don't have a game plan. And so when I come alongside them, the first thing that I do is we spend about 45 minutes together and do a I call it a mini assessment of their business. Uh, we look at some key areas and then I, when I, if they want to walk away at that point they can. There's no, no obligation I will give them a 48 page written out report that shows not 12. I actually show them 40 areas where they can improve and and what they need to, some, some basics, what they need to do and my sales pitch, if you want to call it that is literally do you want help implementing these things or not?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And if they say yeah, Of course you do.

Speaker 2:

Yes, why wouldn't you?

Speaker 3:

And but, by the way, if you, if you increase the 40 areas by 1.4%, it's a 5X income on your profit. So you know what makes it unique? Well, I kind of I tell people I sell money at a discount. So, uh, that's. That's because, uh, by doing what I do, I can show business owners like here's, here's where the money is. And then if they invest in me, I have, I have a 300% ROI guarantee for every, every dollar that you spend or invest. I guarantee I'll find three, and usually it's closer to 10. And again, it's numbers. It's not not something crazy, and it's not just me we have. I have a team of coaches that I work with and they've seen we've done assessments on about 50,000 different businesses in 40 different countries and we've got CPAs on the team, so it's a fairly robust approach.

Speaker 2:

So you've helped a lot of businesses. So while you're helping these businesses, what have you come across that people may have a misconception about what you do? What? What are some of the things you hear?

Speaker 3:

I think the biggest one, if I could, if I could narrow it down, is, is A lot of business coaches and this is from experience. They will focus on revenue and business owners often focus on revenue and the problem with that is that revenue may feed your ego, profit feed your family, and so instead of, instead of I don't, I can take a million dollar business sometimes, and instead of helping them get to $2 million, which we can do that too, but if we can take, if we can change their net income, their net profit, from 10% to 15% or 20%, that's a big difference.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a huge difference in take home, and it's less work. Usually it's better efficiency, and so that's probably the biggest misconception is I mean, I will help grow businesses, and we do that too, but I really focus on the profit, just because that tends to reduce a lot of stress in the lives of business owners.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely what I think. Business owners get so distracted by the minutia of their business that they don't spend enough time looking at those figures.

Speaker 3:

Working in the business instead of on the business. Exactly yes, ma'am.

Speaker 2:

That's absolutely right. So let's turn back to you for a minute. When you're not helping businesses thrive, what do you do for fun?

Speaker 3:

That wasn't on the question list, Susanna. What do I do for fun? If you ask me or my wife, that might be a different question.

Speaker 2:

Really yeah, so I love spending time with my family?

Speaker 3:

I might, if you ask me, or my wife, that might be a different question, really, yeah, so I love spending time with my family.

Speaker 3:

I'm grateful. I have four daughters ages 22, 20, 18, and 16. And when we were trying to figure out where to move, I said, well, we can go to, we can go to the Auburn area. We we spent a month up here for graduation, so we liked it. And my wife says you, we can't follow each of our daughters to college. And I said we can follow the first one. So literally we got here and a daughter number one graduated. She's actually a second grade school teacher at Beauregard elementary. And daughter number two is an incoming junior. She's going to be a junior at Auburn. Daughter Number three is starting her first year at Auburn. Thinking I chose pretty good, so I like to spend time with my family. I hope that that comes through and then I do. I have some interesting hobbies. I'm a children's book author on preparedness and gun safety and ham radio and I love amateur radio and ham radio is a is a hobby and pretty much whatever I can do to help people out.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, wide array.

Speaker 2:

Well, let's see you do to help people out. So, yeah, wide array. Well, let's see, one of the main reasons that I do this podcast is to uh, I hope, to encourage people to, you know, follow their dreams of entrepreneurship, and I think it's often um a good idea to hear you know people's successes. Oh, I started this business and it's doing great, but we don't really hear a lot of the struggles that come along with it and you're going to have some challenges, but they're worth overcoming. What are some of the challenges, either personal or in your business, that really helped you to become a stronger person in your business, to be a stronger business?

Speaker 3:

Oh, I think that my biggest struggle I teach a personality assessment called four lenses and I'm, I'm of the, the type of person. I'm a, I'm a perceiver, but I I value freedom and I value doing crazy stuff, but the problem with that is I. I may be accused of sometimes being a procrastinator and I made this, I made that comment last night.

Speaker 2:

I made that comment last night and my whole family busted out laughing. And.

Speaker 3:

I always say that a wise man once said he who waits the last minute knows it'll only take a minute. But that doesn't always work well in business, and so I think the biggest struggle that I've had, the challenge I've had, is that what I do today, I'm not going to see the results of it sometimes for 60, 90. I have. I have some things on the books that are like nine months in advance. Uh, cause I travel a lot and go to Seattle and train up there, and so that's probably the biggest thing is is having the ability to stop and just look at the calendar and look at the and connect the dots, like, can you connect the dot from your what you're doing today to what's going to happen in nine months? Or with business owners. You know I'll see business owners spend a lot of money on Facebook ads or something like that, but can you tie that ad directly to a sale?

Speaker 3:

and even have the right message, and so being able to see the big picture and connect the dots, that's kind of one of my gifts. Applying that to that to my own world, though, that's the challenge.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Well, what is one thing you wish people knew about Camel Alliance that they may not, you know, automatically get from your website or from talking to you? What's one thing you really wish they knew?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so there's a book out there called Remarkable, by Randy Ross and Dave Selliers. I think Dr Ross just moved up to Alexander City. He talks about how most people go through life trying to extract value from every situation, every interaction. How do I get something out of the situation? And so, instead of asking how do I extract value from the situation and get the most out of it, the question that I ask is how do I create value for the person I'm sitting in front of? And so when someone calls me, I'm not trying to always sell someone. I spend a lot of time with people on Zoom just trying to help, and I believe that if you spend time creating value for others, that yeah.

Speaker 3:

It eventually makes a comeback. And so that's probably the biggest thing is is I have some people just call me and they'd be like hey, I just want to talk and I'm like we can just talk. No, no, like right, no, I don't, I'm not sending people after you, but but a lot of times it really just starts with the basic phone call because people want to know are you authentic, are you real?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

You know, and they're like oh, people can trust you, you're a chaplain. I'm like well, maybe you haven't met enough chaplains, but I mean there's, you know, there's a lot of a lot of things that go into that, but I think that's the real thing is I really do. I want to see businesses succeed, especially in the area in which I live, and so and we have such a special area here Auburn Opelika is a really special place.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, how can people find more information about you and get in contact with you?

Speaker 3:

Yes, ma'am. So Camel Alliance, that's camel with a K, or if you go there you can click on it, or camel coaching is probably the easier one. If you go to camelcoachingcom, I've got a some free training videos. There's a simulator where you can plug that percentage in based on your numbers, and it will send you an email, just one. It doesn't put you on a big spam list or anything. It'll send you one email with 12 videos. If you do the deep dive and I found that a lot of business owners they'll go there first and see the value of it, and then they contact me, and so that becomes an easy way. I'm also on LinkedIn and I just started. Literally this week I started a group on Facebook called Business Profit Strategies and its whole goal is to provide a place for business owners to just talk to other business owners and get some get some wise counsel.

Speaker 2:

So what is that website address? Again, camel Coaching.

Speaker 3:

Camel Coaching with a K. And then if you go to, if you go to Facebook, you type in Business Profit Strategies. You'll there's not a lot of Kermit Jones's out there, but there are a few, yeah. And then if you go to Facebook, you type in business profit strategies, there's not a lot of Kermit Jones's out there, but there are a few.

Speaker 2:

Either one of those will get to me. All right, awesome. Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you today. I've really enjoyed learning about you and your business, Camel Alliance. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much, Suzanne. Have a great day.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, auburn. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpauburncom. That's gnpauburncom, or call 334-429-7404.