Profit Acceleration for Small Business Owners

In this episode of Keeping Businesses in Business, host Thomas Fotes is joined by Haley Norton for a conversation all about profit acceleration for small business owners. From increasing revenue and improving cash flow to knowing when to raise prices, cut costs, or expand, they break down practical strategies that help businesses grow smarter, not just bigger.

Tune in for real conversations, honest insights, and actionable tips designed to help business owners maximize profitability while building a business that actually works for their life and goals.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Hi, I'm Thomas Fontez with Accounting Services Unlimited, where we're keeping you in business. I'm with Haley. Haley, go ahead and introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hi, good morning. My name is Haley Norton, and I am actually a new addition to the ASU team. So thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

New and improved, new and improved edition.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yes, yes, yes, yes. New and improved. But I'm very happy to be here to be talking with you today about why and how we can help keep businesses in business.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yes. So what's the first thing we want to talk about today, Henry?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Well, it's on my understanding that today we're going to be talking about a little bit of a profit acceleration. Um, you know, how to give more value to your clients.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yeah, you know, a lot of people get stuck doing the same things over and over and over. And uh we talked about innovation a little bit in the last podcast, which is great, but there's some things we can do to make things better.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Um, you know, one of the things that we try to do here at ASU is to make sure that we fill the full needs of our clients. Our clients may want a lot of things, but what they need is some of the things that we offer. For example, um, you know, we all know that ASU does accounting and bookkeeping for small businesses and then does taxes and um and sales tax. But some of our clients fall behind with their vendors, not because they don't have the money, but because they don't have time to keep up and they're just paying whoever screams the loudest. So ASU has something called um bill pay that we have a full staff of people, a full division of people whose job it is to help our clients pay their bills, keep up with those bills. And not only that, uh, we also make sure, for example, if you're somebody that gets a lot of receipts or invoices from your vendors and then a statement at the end of the month, our staff, what they do is they make sure that you don't double pay anything. Uh, make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. Because as we know, a lot of those vendors are also not paying attention. In a lot of cases, there's no malice involved. It's just disorganization on both sides.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

So through our bill pay division, we're able to help you make sure you pay things on time. And some cases you even get a discount for paying a little before uh things are due and things like that. Um so that's kind of what we talk about when we kind of listen to a client's needs, if they need something like that. Depending on what type of client it is, uh, we also work for with um with businesses that need invoicing done. Uh, that sometimes you would laugh that some of the clients that are hurting the most in cash flow haven't billed for two or three weeks or four weeks where they have bills just hanging out there and uh and they just and they just uh don't don't bill. And then they try to bill everything all at once. And if they forget something or they miss something, well, so they caught that cost them money. Right. So again, that's an additional service. It's something that you would call an upsell. Of course, when uh sorry, of course, when um you're in a different type of industry, you try to look for ways that might benefit the client. For example, I have a client that sells uh embroideries and um, you know, the embroidered t-shirts, embroidered shirts, everything. And just the other day we were talking and he didn't think of offering a potential client cups and pens that they also do. It's just something additionally that they can do. And if you're already shipping things out to your client, it's not gonna cost the client a whole lot more to just buy those and ship them out. Right. Um, you know, with with restaurants, it's even easier. You know, teach your staff, offer the appetizer, absolutely, offer the side dish, um, offer, you know, a little bit more. A lot of times the clients or the customers don't know that you have these things. It's the reason why the first thing they do when you sit down is um tell you the specials. Sometimes I've walked into restaurants where I have to ask, are there any specials? And they're like, oh yeah. We've got um, we've got all these specials, and you're like, okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Right. Because if you're gonna walk up and you're gonna offer me something that's off menu that I'm gonna like more and you're gonna get about $10 more, why are you not gonna tell me about it? But I think a big part of that too is making sure that your staff is educated enough to know to tell the customers that are. What to look for. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

What to look for. And um, you know, if we're going to a restaurant, we're all hungry. Uh but yeah, no, I mean that's that's a that's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Right. And I think a big part of that too is just asserting yourself as having more value than the customer originally thought. Because if they don't know about it, then what is it offering them? Nothing. Right. But if you come up and you tell them about it and you say, okay, keep going with the restaurant example, and you say, Okay, you know what? This is on our specials menu, and then you also get a free drink with it. That provides so much more value to the customer because then they think, oh, I'm getting a free drink with it. Yeah, I'm gonna pay a little bit more for that. And on the back end of it, how much did that drink really cost the restaurant?

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

You know, maybe $2 compared to the $10 sale.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Um Right. You're mentioning bundling, right? So Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, mentioning, but yeah, I mean, and that's and you know, we always laugh at the uh state farm commercials, right, about bundling. But um, even in our industry and it with service-based industries like ours, you know, it's important. You know, we I know that if I add the bookkeeping, plus we offer the bill pay, plus we can knock out the tax returns for them, and we can put it together in a package that's reasonably priced, um, and the client works with us on that. Well, of course, of course, your client's gonna like that, my client's gonna like that. Right. Uh it makes things that makes things uh a lot easier for everybody, especially if they don't know that you're willing to do that. So um keeping packages together, you know, the combos at McDonald's have been there for a million years for a reason. Yeah. Um, it's not just for for people like me and Mike over there who's filming this thing. Um but uh those combos have been around for a while. So uh there's a reason. And and uh and look for ways. Not everybody has that in their industry, but if you look, um obviously uh if if you can put a few things together for your clients, they always enjoy in well, I think we all do when you can put something together like that that uh that's that feels like a savings and at the same time keeps you from having to look around somewhere else for something.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

That's exactly what I was about to bring up because it kind of establishes more of a trust factor with you and that client. Correct. Because if they come to you and they say, Oh, we just need bookkeeping work done, but then you look at their bookkeeping work and you see some things that could have been changed in other areas from services that you offer, how are you how are you doing that? Are you telling them?

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Well, of course. I mean, one of the main things that we look at, I mean, and and this is gonna be a little dark for some of you, um, it's uh sometimes we see a lot of bank charges on somebody's P ⁇ L. And it's interesting because sometimes the profit will be healthy, but you see an absorbent amount of bank charges. And that's because they're being charged for overdraft fees. Now, it doesn't mean they're bouncing the checks, it just means that the bank is having to cover those fees, whether they're taking money from another savings account or something like that. And so that happens. The other thing that catches my attention is when they pay penalties and interest on sales taxes or something, or or or um, you know, state sales taxes or parish sales taxes or county sales taxes. Uh and it's unnecessary as long as somebody's paying attention. And of course, we offer those services and we try to keep up with them. And the most dangerous one of all, and this is the scariest one, and if, you know, I wish we could put a little uh skeleton here or uh crossbones, is uh payroll taxes is the most dangerous tax to be late on or to file late or uh to get wrong. And so a lot of times, and and I'll be honest, we have a payroll company, we can handle it, and I refer it out to a lot of payroll companies. There are great a couple of great pay payroll companies out there because those taxes are very dangerous. So that is a value added that we offer, but also sometimes, depending on who the client is, I will refer it out to a trusted uh vendor that I know that I've worked with for a long time and um and go from there. I mean, that's that's uh part of part of what having somebody uh that is on your team, and that's what ASU is. Uh we join a team. We work together with the clients to help things, help them become more profitable, and also, of course, as we mentioned before, happiness and to make the client happier because uh they're not worried about money anymore, or they're not worried about having to do that sales tax before the 20th of the month or payroll before the 15th and all those things.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

They can focus on other things that are more important than help their business run and make them more money. Now, I know you said um in a previous podcast that you were talking about let the client tell you their needs, don't you know go out of your way and do all these things because they're gonna tell you. So with that and the the bundle of the things or the added-on services, how are you identifying that? Are is it in those first initial client meetings?

SPEAKER_03 9:13

I said a lot of things in the last podcast. Yeah, of course. The initial client meetings, um, like the first the initial client meetings are where we get the most amount of information. Uh I try to keep them short. Um, I know what I do and I know what what how we can help a client out, but every single type of industry is a fingerprint. Um, every type of business owner is a fingerprint. Everybody has a different way of doing things. Nothing is the same. I don't care if it's a law firm, architects, engineers, um, bars, restaurants, bars, you know, um, they uh, you know, every single one is different. So when we first get that initial meeting, that first consultation, uh, we get as much information as we can. Now, clients always forget because we spend a lot of time in that initial meeting. You know, we've had them go up to two hours and ten minutes recently. That was a jab at me. I had a customer in here a while, but we helped them. Yeah, no, I almost had to feed them or put them on payroll. I know. Um, and so, you know, that's that's uh, you know, but we will take that kind of time out. And if I've got to, you know, if we've got to move things around the calendar, that doesn't mean everybody has two hours and ten minutes to spend with us. But every minute you spend with us at the beginning saves you time down the line. But the other thing is I want to talk to you again and again and again and again. In other words, um when when we do the accounting, when we do the books, we don't just fire and forget. We we we don't just send you reports every month and forget about you. I want to talk to you every three months, I want to talk to you every six months, I want to talk to you before taxes are ready to be done. I wanna dig for things that you've done that maybe you didn't think you needed to tell us. You bought a new car, you gotta tell us.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

You know, um, you remodeled, you gotta tell us. You bought a new piece of equipment, you gotta tell us.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Um, you know, a lot of times we won't find out uh somebody has bought a fleet of vehicles until we start seeing the payments coming out from the financing.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I'm like, what's going on here? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Why are you paying for it? $10,000 a month all of a sudden. Right? Oh, we bought four trucks for the plumbing company. Um, you know, things like that. So the and the only way we know that is by these consultations. Um, even if you want to just tell me you had a kid, which guess what? We need to know that too. If you had a baby, I'm gonna tell you, wow, I didn't even know she was pregnant. Um, you know, hopefully that was your wife. But yeah, you know, me too. Yeah, uh things like that. But yeah, that's the importance of of uh you know, can of having those consultations and meeting all the time. And the thing is, uh we don't charge anything for it. Yeah, it's part of our service. Uh why not take advantage of us? Uh, you know, a lot of other firms, a lot of other bookkeepers don't take the time to meet with their clients because they're so busy.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

As I like to say, I'm not busy. I got all the time in the world for you. I'm lying, I'm busy.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah, I was about to say that is a lie because we are busy. Oh I mean, I think all consultations are great, whether I mean it's an existing customer or a new customer, because it just gives you more of an idea and establishes more of a relationship with that person. And that's where a lot of the value comes from whenever you're signing on to a new service, it like we were trying to talk about earlier, the trust factor of it all. That's a big part of it because you don't want to give someone access to your bank accounts, to your the way that your money moves without having to.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

But I mean, we're seeing how you live. You know, if if um if you're telling me you're on a diet, but you know, we see Popeyes on your credit card. We're probably gonna cut to call a cardiologist. We're gonna do it and do something about it. Um but you know, uh it's the same with um one of my favorites, and again, going dark is um sometimes uh people will gamble and they'll we'll see it on their credit cards or their bank statements. Oh, yeah, there are too many casinos in this town. Yes, that's true. But it happens, and it's important to keep track of it, and it's important to see it. And a lot of times somebody doesn't realize that skipping lunch and hanging out at the casino for an hour, um, you know, you think it's no big deal. But when you show them the report or you sit with them at a consultation and you say, hey, look, you you took cash out of the bank um 20 times this month, and even if it was $40, here's what you spend. Do you have the cash? Do you have this cash? Right? Because that automatically goes right to right to right to their profit where it becomes taxable because they're taking money out of the company. So um, not to mention the fact it might hurt their their um their profitability and and to paying their bills. But those are the things that sometimes in a simple consultation, they may say, holy smokes, I didn't even think of it.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

You know, I go grab a burger at the bar down the street and they have poker machines. So, you know, that comes out in the consultation.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Um, or the worst one at all is when they realize that the wife, because it's always the wife, um it's always the wife that uh that does this, um, you know, has been spending a little too much on Amazon. And uh we have to differentiate the It's funny, all the women in the room are laughing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because we know that we're the problem. We're the problem, right? Exactly. Um just kidding, ladies. I'm sure some guys do it too. Um But anyway, yeah. So so and those are the kind of things that we find on top of the fact that we ask them about, you know, the cost of goods and things that they can do to save money, or um, or maybe even uh towards the end of the year when it's time to buy more equipment or or um you know, put up more inventory. Right. Things like that. Um sometimes uh what I'll see if somebody becomes too profitable is I'll ask, you know, how hard are you working? And if they're telling me they're spending 16-hour days in the office, hey, hire somebody, man.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

You know, hire somebody that yourself some slack. Yeah, yeah. I you know, I had I had a client of mine tell me a long time ago um that you know he was killing himself. And at the end of the month, he was pretty much breaking even. And he realized he was spending just as much time doing quotes as he was selling stuff. Yeah. And I said, Well, why don't you hire somebody to to well he was a flooring company, so to to install floors um and you just do the quotes, or vice versa. And one of the things he told me after he hired somebody was the man said, I don't need practice. He said, When people come and all of a sudden they ask me for a quote and another quote and another quote, he just told the client, he said, I don't need practice. He said, There's there's my pricing. And in the meantime, he said, I had time to do that. And the client came back and bought from him and said, I want you to install my floor. It's like you were the first flooring company to tell me this is what you need.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

So um, you know, that that uh so yeah, so we don't need practice. Uh you want to make sure that uh that you know that you don't need practice. Now, after everything we've talked about, remember if you're looking at your P ⁇ L and you don't know what you're looking at, if you're looking at your balance sheet and you don't know what you're looking at, if you see your costs are high and you don't know how to fix that if you're looking at some expenses. Or even worse, if you're not looking at anything, because you don't have time to put things together, or whoever is putting together accounting and bookkeeping for you, then give us a call. Uh my name is Thomas Fontez with Accounting Services Unlimited.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah, and I'm Haley Norton. Uh, thank you, Thomas, for having me. This is my first time ever on a podcast, so maybe he'll ask me back. I don't know. I doubt it, but okay. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. But no, thank you so much for having me. Um and don't forget, y'all, we are on all the socials as well. All of our accounts Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or X, I should say. Sorry, I'm still stuck in old habits. Are all accounting services? Get with it, Haley. Get with it. Yeah, so if you want to see clips from podcasts or upcoming episodes, just go ahead and give us a follow, a like, a subscribe, anything, we'll take it.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

Can I do the phone number? Yeah. 504 838 7140. For those of you that still use phones.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

That's it. Y'all have a good day.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Bye.