Latest / The Action Catalyst / Relax, Have Fun, What's the Difference? with Josh Fox (Finance, Money, Business, Economics)

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Relax, Have Fun, What's the Difference? with Josh Fox (Finance, Money, Business, Economics) · The Action Catalyst

0:00
Adam Outland: Hello Action Catalyst listeners. Welcome
0:02
back. We have with us Josh Fox today CEO and co founder of
0:08
Bottom Line Concepts, a consulting firm that teams up
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with organizations to assess the top line items that are
0:15
adversely affecting the business's profits. Please help
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me in welcoming Josh Fox. Thanks for making the time. Josh, I
0:21
appreciate you being on here with us. And I'd love to start a
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little bit early in your story. And then we can dive in to a big
0:28
part of what you do today. But I'd love to hear how you chose
0:31
the path of call it money in general, what did you get
0:35
focused on this aspect of business in your life.
0:39
Josh Fox: It goes really, really, really far back, Adam,
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in fact, my great grandfather worked on Wall Street. And so it
0:47
was my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, what I
0:51
ever knew my entire life was, you know, my family working on
0:55
Wall Street. And in 1977, my father moved to Long Island, New
1:02
York, and he chose the shortest commute into the city, so that
1:06
he could be at work every day. And but what I do remember also
1:09
is that my father was, most importantly, as a family, man.
1:13
And so when that when the bell rang at four o'clock, he got
1:16
right on that train, and he made sure that he was home for dinner
1:19
with his family. And that was, I think, part of what shaped me as
1:23
a man today, knowing that my father put his family first. And
1:27
you know, work was important to him, but he wanted to always be
1:30
around for dinner and for soccer and swim practice. And, you
1:34
know, that was definitely something that made me a person
1:38
that was in full of integrity.
1:40
Adam Outland: So unlike so many people, I mean, you you
1:42
literally have this literally in your blood generationally. But
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but you ended up doing econ. And then what was your first gig
1:50
coming out of out of university?
1:52
Josh Fox: I've only really had two jobs in my life. Right after
1:56
college, I became a independent financial advisor, where I was
2:01
advising either individuals or corporations on things like, you
2:05
know, health insurance plans, pension programs. So, you know,
2:09
very early on, I was advising individual families and small
2:14
corporations on how to set up benefit programs and how to do
2:19
investments.
2:20
Adam Outland: But roughly what year was this that you were
2:22
doing the financial advisor?
2:23
Josh Fox: 1999, basically.
2:25
Adam Outland: So you've been doing that almost a full 10
2:28
years when the financial crisis happened?
2:30
Josh Fox: Yeah, that was the "aha" moment, Adam, you know, if
2:33
the listeners out there can really vividly remember the
2:36
mortgage meltdown of 2008. That's when I sat back, I was
2:40
working on Wall Street, I was following in my family's
2:42
footsteps. And all we saw in this country during the Oh,
2:45
eight meltdown was lots of companies just firing their
2:49
employees, you know, everybody needed to save money. Everybody
2:53
wanted to save their business. And it seemed like the quickest,
2:57
fastest way for businesses to just save money tomorrow was to
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cut headcount. And that was not something that felt good to me,
3:06
that wasn't something that was a long term strategy. Like, let's
3:10
not cut headcount. And so I said to myself, was there a way to
3:14
start a business where we could go to some of the largest
3:17
corporations on Earth, and help them figure out ways to do one
3:21
of two things, to go back in time and look for refund past
3:25
opportunities where we could get the money back from the past?
3:29
Sometimes we could go back 20 3040 years, and which we've
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done, so half of the model was going back and looking for
3:36
refunds, and the other half of the model was figuring out
3:40
strategies to help them save money on their expenses, without
3:44
sacrificing people without cutting headcount.
3:48
Adam Outland: Do you feel that your experience prior had given
3:52
you insights before 2008? Were you were seeing a lot of just
3:57
overweight expenses in certain areas? What were you because I
4:02
feel like that's generally the role of an auditor to see that
4:04
side of the business. So what gave you that insight?
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Josh Fox: Well, simultaneously, Adam, I was actually voted to be
4:11
president of my condominium in New York City. Okay. And so I
4:15
was responsible for about 220 families, and as the President
4:21
of the building my job, unpaid job, volunteer job, right. Like
4:26
my volunteer job as the president of the building was to
4:30
help control the cost of the building. And so I was
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renegotiating contracts with like, with the electricity and
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the gas and the water. I was helping lower union fees. I was
4:41
looking for cheaper supplies for the buildings. I was looking for
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bank accounts where we could get higher interest on our money.
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Like I really use my financial skills that I had learned to
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become this great president of one of the largest and newest
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condominiums at the time in New York City. I got written up in
5:00
the Wall Street Journal I got written up in the New York
5:03
Times, I was protecting their investment and I was protecting
5:06
the building.
5:07
Adam Outland: Yeah, so it was your as your volunteer job that
5:11
actually gave you the first insight. So because we have a,
5:14
we have 18 different companies in our family of companies for
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the Southwestern Family of Companies. And we have some
5:20
shared corporate resources for things like marketing. And so
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I'm just kind of playing this out as an example from like,
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what I see day to day, so I can better understand it. But let's
5:28
say you hire brilliant marketing people, because they've got an
5:32
eye for marketing and how to build something, but someone in
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marketing may not be trained around how to handle and vet
5:39
proposals or contracts with vendors, right? Is that kind of
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what we're talking about, like where it might be a department
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that's really skilled at their craft, but part of every
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business units responsibility are going with outside vendors.
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And so you're just assessing, are we doing what's right with
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outside vendors, contracts? And that's one area that's being
5:59
squeezed by companies in some cases?
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Josh Fox: I mean, there's, there's a fancier term today
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called procurements, you know, it used to be kind of
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negotiations, or know that there's, there's companies that
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are buying, you know, millions and 10s of millions of stuff
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every day for their business. I mean, it could be pens and
6:15
pencils, it could be light bulbs, it could be anything that
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they're buying to continue to run your business. And as you
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grow as you acquire companies, as you, as you said, you have
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all these businesses, like there's lots of inefficiencies,
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you know, you might be using staples in one company, and
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Office Depot in a different company, and you need to
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coordinate, you know, buying the supplies, maybe from one vendor
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and getting price breaks and getting better prices, because
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you're able to consolidate that kind of stuff.
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Adam Outland: When companies grow quickly, they don't always
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sit down and reflect on their buying power and how that
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adjusts with scale.
6:51
Josh Fox: But the other thing is the data, Adam, you know what I
6:54
mean? Like, if you're buying a pencil for $1, how do you know
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if that pencil should be 80 cents, 70 cents, or 60 cents, if
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you have our data from hundreds and 1000s of other companies on
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what other companies were paying for that pencil, you have power,
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you have knowledge to be able to go back to a vendor and say, Hi,
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I know other clients that are using you that are paying 1020
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30 40% less, I would like the same deal or close to the same
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deal that you're giving my other clients. And that was the, you
7:26
know, the beginning of things like GPOs group purchasing
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organizations where they would band together hundreds or 1000s
7:33
of companies, and they would go to vendors and they would say,
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Listen, I have not one company, I have 1000 companies and I want
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to buy these products for all my clients at a discount. And
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that's where the GPOs have really been powerful.
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Adam Outland: One of the things I think you've shared is that
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you say in many cases, you've seen over 50% of monthly
7:53
invoices containing errors or miscalculations that waste
7:57
money. But why is that error rate so high?
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Josh Fox: I mean, think about it, every time I go to dinner,
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like a lot of people just like sign the cheque and they just
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move off. Like it's very, very frequently when I look at the
8:09
bill at dinner or lunch, you're charged for an extra water or
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you're charged for an extra coffee, you know, this eye dish
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shouldn't have been included in the meal. Like it's just a
8:19
question of looking and reviewing and taking the extra
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time to look at this stuff.
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Adam Outland: You're the guy at the dinner date that reviews the
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receipt.
8:28
Josh Fox: I think it's worth taking a few minutes to make
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sure it's correct.
8:32
Adam Outland: My wife would applaud you. I should do that
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more. So I guess what particular areas of business? Are you most
8:38
likely to have hidden savings? Is it what you were mentioning
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earlier where it's kind of the hard resources that a company
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might use as they scale? like light bulbs, staples, like kind
8:48
of the office supplies? Or are there other hidden areas?
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Josh Fox: I think that companies that tend to have the most
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opportunity for efficiencies and savings are the ones that have
8:58
the most locations, you know, once you're located in 20
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states, 30 states 40 states, and you're all over the place like
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how do you manage a business that has so many stores, and so
9:10
many locations? You know, one of the things that we've been doing
9:13
since the very beginning, one of the coolest programs that we
9:16
found out was something called unclaimed property. Like there
9:19
are so many lost checks out there in this country, where a
9:23
vendor will send a check to an office a store or location and
9:28
the business move the business change like they're not located
9:31
there anymore. And that money never ends up in the rightful
9:35
owner. So there's a shipment process in our country where the
9:39
vendor who wrote the check cannot keep the other vendors
9:43
money, they must sheet the money over to the state where they
9:47
initiated that check. And so like California is like number
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two, New York is number one. I mean these states are holding
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billions and billions and billions of dollars of launched.
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Check See, that belongs to either individuals or belong to
10:03
corporations. And corporations don't necessarily even realize
10:07
that the money is available to them. And that's one of the most
10:10
unique programs that we've been doing here for 10 plus years, is
10:14
helping corporations identify unclaimed checks, and helping
10:19
them recover that money.
10:20
Adam Outland: So there's just kind of a natural ROI for the
10:22
work that you do, because you're saving companies a lot of a lot
10:26
of money when they invest in that service.
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Josh Fox: Yeah, and we built a different model, Adam, you know,
10:31
in the fact that we were willing to do all of the work, we were
10:34
willing to do all of the research, we were willing to do
10:38
everything to take the project to completion. And our clients
10:42
never had to pay us anything until it was successful. So we
10:45
give them a very easy way to say yes to this, like, yeah, go get
10:50
me my money from the state of New York, or go get me my money
10:53
from the state of New Jersey. And if you can get me the money,
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I'm happy to share a portion with you. So you really allow
11:00
the client to get the benefit without having to pay a fee
11:03
until it's done.
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Adam Outland: Internally, in your company, you have a sort of
11:07
a mantra of "thank God, it's Monday", which you believe is
11:12
really important philosophy for people talk about that. What
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does that mean?
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Josh Fox: When you love what you do you love going to work? You
11:21
know, for me, I'm sad on Fridays, because the workweek is
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over happy on Sunday night, because I know the next work
11:29
week is available. And we've helped so many businesses, Adam,
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and when we think about the work that we've done, like all of the
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wonderful benefits of what's happened to the money that we've
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saved and recovered for these companies. One of the most
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important things I think, that we see at corporations is what
11:48
kind of benefits packages are being offered to its employees,
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retaining employees, hiring key employees, having great talent
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is the key to a successful organization. So when people are
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interviewing at companies, they're saying, what kind of
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health insurance plan do you offer? Do you offer time off for
12:08
paternity and maternity leave? Do you offer retirement plans?
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Do you match retirement plans? Do you still have pension
12:14
programs like that's very, very, very important to employees when
12:18
they're choosing a place to work. And so what we found is
12:22
that as we started to save and recover money for these
12:25
businesses, they were able to enhance and improve the benefits
12:30
packages that they offered to their employees to make it a
12:33
more attractive place to work.
12:36
Adam Outland: I love that, thank God, it's Monday, that's a good
12:38
that's good mantra no matter what business someone's in,
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right, you need to have that attitude around your line of
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work. And speaking of work, this is so kind of shifting gears for
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a second. Josh, we got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to our
12:50
podcast, as well there that are actually at the start of their
12:53
career in business. And in taking a chance on building
12:56
something, you know, 10 years in as a financial advisor. I mean,
12:59
it's 2008, we talked about the recession and your change of
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heart focus with the line of work you did, but there's
13:05
something that it's in my head that I want you to answer is
13:07
this. I mean, I'm an executive coach, I work with a lot of
13:10
people in wealth management, 10 years into a financial advisor
13:13
career, it's hard to leave. I mean, you're making good money.
13:16
You're the president of your condo, like things are going
13:18
great. I get there's there's a big impact in the marketplace.
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But like why take a risk to do this?
13:24
Josh Fox: You know, Adam, 67% of American businesses are small
13:28
businesses. It's the heart of America. It's capitalism. It's
13:32
what makes America great that you can start something from
13:35
nothing, and build it into something awesome. And I wanted
13:39
to do that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to start
13:42
something from scratch. I remember when I was a kid, like
13:45
sitting with my grandmother, I was always interested in
13:48
building things. I love games and building things. And that's
13:51
really who I wanted to be. I wanted to provide an opportunity
13:55
to start a company and to grow a business. And you know, today,
13:59
we employ over 300 people that love to come to work that truly
14:04
believe in TGIM. We have people that work at the company where
14:08
there are husbands and wives that work here. There are you
14:11
know, mothers and fathers that work here, like there's like
14:14
family members that work for the company. And it's just such a
14:17
great atmosphere here. I am very, very, very, very
14:21
passionate about the environment and the oceans and 40 of us from
14:25
the company on a Saturday here in Florida. We gave up our
14:29
Saturday, we went down to the beach, we went there with
14:33
plastic bags, and we collected 124 pounds of plastic off of the
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ocean. Like as the leader of the company, like that's the stuff
14:41
that inspires me. That's the stuff that makes me warm my
14:45
heart that we have a group of people here that started from a
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small company, and then we had people who really care to go
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clean up the oceans. I mean, that's pretty special.
14:55
Adam Outland: I can appreciate that. That's awesome. You know,
14:57
there's no real Disney story if ever Anything goes perfect Josh,
15:01
right? Like there's and there's probably very few stories where
15:04
you start a business and everything works perfectly from
15:07
the beginning. And there's never a problem. And so let our
15:10
listeners in a little bit on this, because I feel like
15:13
everybody runs into a wall. I know a lot of our listeners run
15:16
into a wall when they're building and starting a
15:17
business. So speak to that for a minute. What are some of these
15:20
challenges that you found as the leader of the company building
15:23
the business itself?
15:25
Josh Fox: I did something kind of unique Adam, I ended up
15:28
hiring and working with many, many, many, many of my old
15:32
friends here at the company. So I have friends that work here
15:35
that I've known since middle school, I have friends that work
15:38
at the company that I've known since summer camp, I have
15:41
friends that work at the company that I went to college with, I
15:44
have friends that I went to high school with, and the camaraderie
15:48
and the friendships and the leaning on each other in the
15:51
tough times and tough moments that we are here together. A
15:55
group of people that I've known for 1020 30 years, has allowed
16:01
any of those issues or storms to be weathered. It's such a
16:04
positive way, because we all know each other for so long.
16:08
Adam Outland: That's great. One last question that we'll leave
16:11
you with is this advice that you knowing everything that you know
16:15
today that you would give your younger self, I mean, if you
16:17
went back to the 21 year old, Josh, that's just completely
16:20
University, going down this path that you've been down, what
16:23
would be the one piece of advice you'd give yourself?
16:25
Josh Fox: I mean, I'm sure people say this. But this is
16:27
really to need the one atom, you have to love what you do. If
16:32
you're just there for a paycheck. If you're just doing
16:35
something to make money, you're going to be burned out quick,
16:38
you're going to be unhappy. Like when I say TGIM, like that's the
16:42
truth. Like I love to go to work, I love the people I'm
16:45
working with, I love the clients that I'm working with. And I
16:48
love our mission. Our mission is to help businesses, our mission
16:52
is to help small businesses reinvest in themselves. Like
16:57
it's so incredible when we see the money that we've helped
17:00
these businesses get and what they're doing with it, how
17:03
they're reinvesting it into their businesses, how they're
17:05
making their employees better how they're expanding their
17:09
businesses, like the American dream.
17:12
Adam Outland: And for listeners, where can they find more of
17:15
these resources and information on you?
17:18
Josh Fox: Our website's bottomlinesavings.com. And I'll
17:21
leave you with this one, Adam, it's relax, have fun. What's the
17:26
difference? And what I mean by that is like, relax, right?
17:30
Like, don't take everything so seriously. Like, we'd sometimes
17:33
take things way too seriously, like, just relax, you know, have
17:38
fun meeting life is all about having fun. Life is not about
17:41
not having fun, let me want to enjoy every day that we're on
17:44
this earth. And then I think the last part is really the most
17:47
impactful and like, what's the difference? Meaning that what
17:50
seems so important today will seem so unimportant tomorrow,
17:55
live in the moment, you know, like enjoy the day that's here,
18:00
the only guarantee we have is today and enjoy it and live in
18:03
the moment no matter what you're doing. And if you really are
18:06
unhappy in your job or your career or what you're doing. The
18:10
great thing is you can make a change. You can try something
18:13
different, like go for it like take a risk like I did, like go
18:17
find something you love to do.
18:19
Adam Outland: Well we'll share that message with our listeners.
18:21
And I appreciate you taking the time that you did to jump on our
18:24
show here at the action catalyst and share a little bit about
18:27
what you do and the experiences that you've had. Thanks for
18:29
joining us.
18:30
Josh Fox: Listen, you guys are amazing. I love what you're
18:32
doing. I appreciate you having me on and really enjoyed the
18:35
conversation.