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The Mistake That Nearly Bankrupted Him (And Is Quietly Killing Most Businesses) - With Mike Milan · The Accounting Leads Now Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success, where we explore what's really working in the world of finance, business strategy and bold decision making.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, james Donovan, and today's guest is someone who brings the perfect combo of energy, expertise and blunt truth.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: We first met just a few weeks ago, grocon in Utah.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: He was a sponsor and speaker at the event and we hit it off immediately.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Between Between great convos and high-level insights, one thing became clear this guy lives and breathes helping business owners actually understand and use their numbers.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about Mike Milan, better known as Cashflow Mike.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: He's a serial entrepreneur, author, speaker and the creator of financial tools and training that actually makes sense to everyday business owners, and right now I'm holding up his book Don't Tell Me what To Do, which I've been reading this week and absolutely loving.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But before we dive into Mike's story and strategies, a quick shout out to our sponsor, billcom.
• 0:58
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• 1:01
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• 1:12
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• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Terms and conditions apply.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Now let's get into the real reason why we're here Cash flow.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Mike, so great seeing you again.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Hey, live from San Antonio.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Is Cashflow Mike, right?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: So I got to tell you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Rarely do I say I miss somebody, but you I missed you, right?
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's been like a month since I saw you and I'm like you know what that's somebody I missed and I was looking forward to today, so I'm glad you had me on.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Hey, you took the words out of my mouth.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I'm pumped to have you on the show and it's great to see you again.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: We had the pleasure of just being across the room from one another with our booth, so got to chat a lot, which was really cool.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Let's dive right into it, mike.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: First things first.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I do have your book here, as I was just showing.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Don't Tell Me what To Do.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It's bold, it's direct.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I love the tone.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: What made you write this and where did the title come from?
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so super interesting, right?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: First of all, don't expect the great Gatsby, right?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Because I'm not that.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I'm not that type of writer, so it's not going to be a classic that you have to read 17 times over the course of your life.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So originally, when I built the Clear Path to Cash, it was eight techniques to maximizing cash in a business, with a combination of things that I teach bankers at the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado and things that I learned over 25 years or so running 14 businesses little things that made it easier for me.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: So I combined that and I used to do seminars for banks, right?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: They would bring in 30 to 100 business owners and I would do a one or two day seminar about how to actually understand and use your financial statements.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And there was a bunch of accountants, and one of them in Arizona, and they came up to me afterwards and said, hey, how come you don't teach this to us?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, I didn't think about it.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I just hadn't thought about.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, that's the third part of the triangle the business owner, the banker and the accountant.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Why am I not spending more time trying to get accountants on the same page.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I'm spending all the time the other way.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I built a clear path to cash and started selling that course to accountants.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I thought, oh, with accountants, all I got to do is teach them math.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: If I teach them the math, and that should be good enough.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Well, what they wanted was role plays how do I use the math with a client?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And when we started doing role plays, I noticed a common theme where an accountant had trouble having a conversation right, a conversation that got people to take action.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That was one of the things that they would tell me.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: They said nobody listens to what I do, nobody listens to what I tell them to do.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: They just go do their own thing.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: They ignore me or they ghost me and those types of things.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I'm like oh, you don't know how to talk to people.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So that's where the idea came from.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Originally, it was giving accountants the words to say Now you're like well, how do you know the words to say.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Well, back in the day, my first job, james, I was a state trooper.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, I remember you saying that, yeah it's so cool, yeah, right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So not only did accountants want to learn math from a state trooper, now they're asking me to teach them how to talk to people.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: So to me that's always weird, but it's one of those things where, as a state trooper, you learn to talk to people on their worst day, right?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And one of the things that you want to do is be able to get them to be committed to whatever is going to happen next, right, if we're going to jail, if we're getting a ticket, you just want to be committed to that action, not compliant, and there's a big difference between commitment and compliance, right?
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: So?
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And compliance is telling people what to do.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: So I started to look at what happened in my business career when I hired consultants or advisors and all of them would come in with these one or two inch binders, or they come in with this slide deck or these reports and they just want to go through it page by page by page.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: You ever done that, right?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Been through somebody's presentation like that?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: yeah, well, I mean that's, that's kind of feels like what high school is like or any any course you're taking, right, it's painful it's like okay, next page, next page, good, because they're never on your, your speed, they're never on your cadence, they're never on your rhythm, they're never talking about the thing that's most interested to you.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Because they did all this.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I call it free work, some people call it pre-work.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: To come to my meeting, right, you want to talk to me and give me advice, but you're not talking to me, you're presenting to me.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So the name of the book is Don't Tell Me what To Do.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: It's a kind of a double entendre there.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Tell meaning you actually can't tell people what to do, because people's natural resistance is to say no, to go away.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I don't want you to tell me anything.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: The other thing tell is an acronym.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: It's an acronym T-E-L-L, which is terminate every long lecture, which means you actually have to start talking to people and kind of, the ratio I use is 70% of the time the customer or client talks and 30% of the time you talk.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: The only way to get to that percentage is to ask the right questions.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so good.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I think too many people miss that in a sales conversation I'll say sales conversation because we're talking about the accountant speaking to the prospect or the client, but it's really it is just about listening.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: You're just there to listen, you ask the right question and then you stop and you just listen, and that's what I mean.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I really got a lot out of your presentation and out of the book so far and that's what it all essentially speaks about is kind of just sit back and listen, ask the right questions and then listen.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: So that's the big mind shift.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Right, when accountants are used to, I have to do so many things in an hour.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Right, it's pop, pop, pop, pop, right, and they're just used to cruising through an hour and doing things as fast as possible.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: The mind shift is this is not a fast art, it is.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: We're spending an hour together however you want to spend it.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Where can I give you most value as the advisor?
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: So to do that, you have to slow down and it's okay not to get everything done on your agenda.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: You'll get to it next time.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: So I've got this idea called the burning issue and everything that I do is to get somebody to tell me what their burning issue is, because I believe that if you say it as the client, it's absolutely true.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Nobody can argue with it.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: If I say it as the advisor, you can argue with it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Right, If I say, hey, here's your problem, you can say no, it's not.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: But if you say it, who am I to say that it's not the problem?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: So the first thing that I teach people to do is how to get your client to actually articulate what is the pain that they feel.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Right, and that's the skill that I teach in that book Don't Tell Me what to Do, is how to go through this elevation sequence.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It's a series of questions that get you to a problem.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So good, I love it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I got to know Mike.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So good, I love it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Um, I gotta know mike.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think I asked you at grocon.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: But where, where did cash flow, mike, the identity, start?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Did you give the name to yourself, did like, how did?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Did someone give it to you where?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Where did it come from?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Because I love it?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I think it just works so well.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: But I'm so curious to know I I think some bankers were making fun of me, right, because when I was teaching at the banking school, I'm walking down the hallway and they go hey, there goes, cash flow Mike.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And I'm like I wonder why they called me that.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: So I turned around and say hey, what does that mean?
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: They said you, you only talk about cash flow.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: You never talk about profit or any of the other stuff.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: It's just cash flow to you.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: So we're we're started calling you cashflow Mike and I thought it was like uh, a dig.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I thought they were making fun of me again.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: But I started hearing it, you know, once or twice in my head and I'm like, damn, that's pretty good.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: It's better than any name I could have come up with, right?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: So, uh, as, as long as you get past the embarrassment of calling yourself cashflow Mike cause it's embarrassing at first, right, hey, I'm cashflow Mike when you get past that and lean into it as an identity, more people know me by that name than my real name.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: I mean even you and I'm not.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not calling you out on this, but my last name is pronounced Milan, right?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have to teach people a song all the time.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: I'm like this land is your land, this land is yeah.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I remember you doing that from stage.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so good.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those things where more people know Cash From Mike.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: It's easier, the website's easier, the social handle, everything's easier with that name.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I just from like the, the marketing side of things as well, like that's immediately where my brain goes to and I think it, it works so good.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Like it's the proprietary system you've built, it's the identity, it's the whole brand.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It's not just mike oh yeah, speak with mike, he's a good connection and blah blah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: No, it's cashflow, mike.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: You know, like everything's cashflow.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Right, I think it, it works so good.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad those bankers said that to you walking down the hall one day.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that's high praise coming from you, right?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: You run a marketing guru company, so that's high praise.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, I appreciate the compliment.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you a lot of business owners know their numbers, but they don't know how to use them.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: What's the most common gap that you see when going into a new business?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Normally it's the difference between profit and cash flow.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Right, I'm making money.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: How come I don't have any?
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Right, that's the most common thing.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Where they're paying taxes, they're seeing these income statements, they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but yet there's $2,000 in the bank.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: So it's the difference between.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: When you look at a company, there's a vertical analysis and that's really your profit loss statement.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: You start with sales and you end with profit vertically, right, you just keep subtracting things until you get to profit.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Then there's kind of the horizontal analysis, which is how long does this take?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: So when?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: The reason I call it horizontal is it's about time, right?
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: So think about a scale, a time scale of how long does it take me to collect, how long does inventory sit on the shelf, how long does it take me to pay my bills?
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: So those two have to work in concert and most people get focused on the income statement, because it's like a report card, and forget about the conversion side.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: It's probably tough because every business is different and every industry is different, but do you have a certain metric or a benchmark of how long a business should have available for cash flow or how much reserves they should have?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It might be a little vague, depending on the industry, have yeah, it might be a little vague, depending on the industry.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: No, actually it's agnostic that's the word I was looking for.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Agnostic meaning that the first threshold I try to get people to is three to six months worth of operating expense, and that works for everybody right.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: So if you spend $10,000 a month just in operating expense your fixed cost, your rent, your salaries, those type of things then you should have thirty to sixty thousand dollars.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: This is critical because people take money out of their company and I won't let my clients do it until they get to that threshold threshold.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: If you're not between 30 and 60, then you can't take any money out.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: And the reason for that is it gives you three to six months of time.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: That's really all we're trying to look at, because, who knows, a hurricane or tornado COVID, you need at least three to six months to be able to come up with a new plan.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: If you've got to pivot, if you've got to change, if you've got to close down and rebuild, you know, if something happens, it gives you an opportunity to adjust right.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: You're not just dead in a day.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Interesting to adjust right.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: You're not just dead in a day.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Interesting how many businesses that you go into working with are have that in place.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Is it common for most like does the majority have three to six months of runway, or did you find a lot of people they they don't have that and they're chasing their tail every month?
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: yeah, they don't have it uh, I'm going to say 90 plus 90 plus percent.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: If I had to guess I don't have stats on it, but if I had to guess, 90 plus percent, because most people are just trying to survive, right?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: We get so wrapped up in the day to day like, oh, I got this customer, I got this product, I got this service, I got this meeting that we're not looking at what we're building by doing all these things.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Right, all of these actions create something.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: And so people always say, well, what's you know working on your business versus in your business?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Right, you probably heard that Nobody was ever really able to explain that to me.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So I built the chart, right?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: So, and and you know, I'll probably pass it over to you and you can kind of put in the show notes but it's a cause and effect chart that visualizes what's working in your business and what's working on your business, what are the activities that kind of happen.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And, more importantly, when I say it's a cause and effect chart, is I built it because I wanted to predict the future?
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: If this happens, what should I expect to happen next?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Right, so it kind of walks somebody through what to expect to happen next if something bad is happening in the business.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always that one's always eluded me for the longest time, I think the first couple of years in business I never really understood what is the difference and I'm probably still learning it more as I go.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: But in the last couple of years it started to hit a lot more and I try to chalk it up as essentially anything that's sold the fulfillment, the delivery of the widget to me that's working on the business and if I can get out of the fulfill or sorry in the business and if I can get out of the delivery aspect, okay, now I can go work on the business stuff.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: But if you're, whatever you're doing, stuck doing the thing that was sold me, that feels like you're inside the business.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: So, first of all, I agree with it.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: What you just described with you know, the delivery of the widget is working in your business.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: It's the thing that I do.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: It's my promise to the customer.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: What do I do to give it to them?
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: What happens on the outside is where everybody gets vague and cloudy, Like I don't know what that is, because they don't do it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: It's vague and cloudy Like I don't know what that is because they don't do it.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Well, think about it.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: If you have low net profit, that is a result of what you did in the business.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Well, if you have low net profit, chances are you're going to have what's called negative operating capital.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: That's not only the income statement, so you don't see it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: But negative operating capital, you know, has some contributing factors like collecting too slow, paying too fast, having too much inventory.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: All those things are kind of on the business.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So if I see negative operating capital, chances are I'm going to be struggling and go steal money from other places.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Right, You've heard of Robin Peter, PayPal and those types of things.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Well, everybody goes to go to the bank.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Just go get a loan.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Well, when you go get a loan, that's working on your business.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: When you go get a loan, there's a higher need for lending and chances are you're going to pay too much interest, right?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: That's another thing that's kind of on the business.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And there's a thing where 60% of small business owners do when they go get loans.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: It's called mismatch financing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: It's using the wrong loan product to buy something.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Think about buying a house with a credit card.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Would you do that?
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: No, Come on, Great miles, Great miles, James.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: No, you don't do that.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Right, but we do that as business owners all the time.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Maybe not that exaggerated, but you'll use a credit card to buy something you can depreciate where you should have used a term loan.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Because credit cards are around 30% right now and term loans are around 10, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It sucks money out of your business in the form of cash.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: So the rule that I teach people on lending is the length of the loan should match the life of the asset, right?
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: So and this is kind of how I teach James is just simple things like that the length of the loan should match the life of the asset.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: So if I can depreciate something for five years, I buy it with a five-year term loan, that way, when depreciation's over, so are the payments, and I can upgrade.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: You know it keeps everything in a real clean, matching situation.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, you say it's simple.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's simple to you because you're the expert in it, but even some of these things you're saying yes, some of it makes obvious sense, but even just other things you're mentioning, it's like, okay, that's, that's really insightful, that's interesting and and there may be a lot of listeners who are like James, you're crazy, that sounds super basic as well, but from not sitting in the seat that you're in every day, it's, trust me, it's not super basic stuff.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So what you're providing your, your audience, your clients, is super valuable.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, that's really kind of you to say, because my whole thing is to bring financial concepts to the regular person right To me, because I wasn't an accountant, I wasn't a banker, but I teach them both.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It's not about teaching them the math.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: They can pick up on the math and all that.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: It's about the connection to the regular person.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Here's how you describe this to somebody that's not sophisticated, doesn't have an MBA, doesn't have a CPA, you know, never, never, dealt with this.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: They're just good at what they do.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's so good, Just simplifying it, taking you know, dumbing it down so that you can explain it essentially to a fifth grader.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I think is the is what I'm hearing from you and that's what I, that's what I got from your presentation again on stage.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I keep going back to that, but that I thought it was just really impactful and it sounded so simple and it's like, yeah, you should know this, because you were able to verbalize it and communicate it in a way that was simple.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So I think that's really good.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Mike, if someone's listening and they're running lean or feeling stuck, what's one decision they can make today that would help them move the needle?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably the one thing is start to look at how long it takes cash to come in right, and the basic thing is try to match your AR and AP at first, because you'll notice that some people just don't have that.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: If they're collecting in 60 days but paying in 15, well, that means all your money's gone and you're still waiting for money to come in.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: That makes your business feel clunky, Like, oh, I'm always waiting for money to come in before I can make a decision or buy something.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Try to get those closer together.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Right, it's called an ARAP match, and when the bankers look at you, they'll look for the mismatch, and the mismatch is that big gap that I just described or it could be the other way, which is money's coming in fast but it's taking you too long to pay.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: The bank's going to ask that question too is hey, you're getting paid, how come you're not paying people?
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: So the closer you can get them to match, the more balanced I think you'll be.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: If you could erase one common piece of bad financial advice forever, what would it be?
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Ooh me, if I could erase that something I do, taking on debt too early.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Right, you say, oh, you need debt, it's good debt, you need it to grow.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: No, it's like a ball and chain up front, right, that's one of the things that I made a mistake in early, early on, that I don't do now.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: That's one of the things that I made a mistake in early, early on, that I don't do now.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I run a debt-free company because I try to match my cash flow with my scalability, right, yeah, but we could take on money, we could take on debt, we could take on investors, but I'm just trying to match it and stay debt-free because it really limits what you can do.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Now, some people have to I have to buy a truck, I have to get a building, I have to do some things, what I have to do.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: But if you're just taking it for cash flow, just to have money to stay alive, well, that's the wrong way to do it.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's a lot again?
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You may not have the stat or the stat's not readily available for us, but how many businesses out there do you think run debt-free?
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Oh man, well, debt-free, I would say less than 20%, I would think.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: I would think that everybody takes a loan for something or tries to get a loan for something, even if it's SBA, to get up and running, to buy the business right.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are buying businesses and they'll take a loan out to do that.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Some of them will buy cars and trucks because their accountant says to do that.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: So for the depreciation aspects it's, I think, probably less than 20%.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: But if you think and dude, that's a total guess, I have no idea.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know I'm throwing up random questions for you.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so and these are new, right, there's two new questions in a row.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: But you know you go back to Michael Dell's quote, right, about where he ran into a cashflow problem and and part of his thing and I don't part of his thing was when they had to move from building after the order.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Right, that's how you used to buy a Dell.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Was you created the order, they would build your product and ship it out to you?
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I remember getting a Dell years ago.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's exactly what it was, and it would take like four to six weeks.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: But you paid up front.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: So cashflow wasn't a problem for Dell.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: They had money come in up front and they'd take your money, buy the parts, put come in up front and they take your money, buy the parts, put it together and ship it back to you.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Well, when CompuServe or CompUSA and all these folks came in we'll say, in Best Buy now they came in HP, all these other companies went on the shelf.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Well, that means Dell had to make the shift from using your money to buy the parts to using their own money to buy the parts and put it on the shelf and wait for the money from the sale.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Right, that's what caused a lot of the cashflow problem.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: And what Michael Dell said was we were too busy watching the speedometer.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: We forgot to look at the gas gauge and what he meant by that.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: The speedometer was sales.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Right, they were trying to just increase sales by putting it in big box stores because they could just get sales every day, instead of watching their cash flow.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Right, they were just putting product on the shelf, product on the shelf, getting paid 90 days later instead of upfront.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: So that's one of the things that I think people need to pay attention to is the matching of sales.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: More sales is only a measurement of work.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It's not a measurement of cash.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Gross profit is the only place you can get cash, so if you're going to look for cash on the income statement, it's gross profit.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: That's such a great visual.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: You kind of touched on it in this next question, but I'm going to ask it anyways, because maybe there's something different that comes up First big money lesson that you learned either the hard way or the fun way.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to do the hard way.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Right, it was growing too fast.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I call it growing broke, which means I'm so successful that I outrun my own operation.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing you know I opened 27 offices, I had a hotel staffing company, 27 offices in nine states in three years had a few hundred people working every day.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Well, what happens there is I'm making payroll every two weeks and Marriott decides they're going to pay me in 70, 80, 90 days, right.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: So I got to make six payrolls before I get paid for the first invoice.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I sent them three months before, right.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: That was me like going.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I'm so successful, I can sell anybody, I can go out there and just grow this business.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And then, all of a sudden, I'm waking up with cold sweats because, oh my God, I don't know if I'm gonna make payroll this next week.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I went four months myself without taking a paycheck, right.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And you want to test your relationship?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: try to go without any money you know, and take a mortgage on the house and max out your credit cards to stay alive.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've that's a hard lesson, I would say.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: So if you want to learn how not to do that, you should take my course.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's so interesting what you're saying there, though, because it's just because you can sell doesn't mean you can run a business Just because you have one aspect of something, just because you're really good at the thing.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people also.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh I'm really good at this, I'm just going to go start a business.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're going to learn the hard way.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of hats to wear to run a business successfully, and it sounds like you learned that one.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I mean you're crushing it, and then it was just waiting for payments.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It will come in, but there's nothing right.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Just think, if I just sell more, I can work myself out of this right.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Everybody thinks that being successful is that and it's really not Meaning that you have to evaluate can I afford to take on this next contract, this next project, this next customer?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Can I afford it?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: And that was a whole piece of the business pie that I missed early on, right Until I started to learn about lines of credit and being able to control the business pie that I missed early on until I started to learn about lines of credit and being able to control the size of that gap money coming in versus money going out.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Where I talked to ARAP, my AR was the invoice from Marriott, my AP was the payroll going out, and they were too far apart.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I was paying in two weeks but getting paid in 90 days.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: That means I had to have, well, we'll say, 60, 70 days worth of money available just to stay open.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: This particular piece that we're speaking about really hits home because I've certainly been in positions and a lot more recent than not where it just feels like the solution is just sell more and it will fix the problem.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: So it is really helpful to hear that from you, that I'm sure there's times where if you just go and sell more it'll fix some problems.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But it's not always the answer of just go and sell, because you'd sell yourself into other problems.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, and believe it or not, there's a technique I teach called expense control, where you can make the same money at different sales levels.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I had a client that was doing $9 million a year.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Over a five-year period their sales whittled down to $8 million a year and we got them to where they were making the same profit at $8 million that they were at $9 million.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: So you can do it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: So remember, sales is only a measurement of how much work you did.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: The money comes in at gross profit and operating expense.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Those are the two things that have to work together.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so good.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: How are you doing on time?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Like I got two more questions for you, I just want to.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I know we're.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I'm I committed to the CFO Chronicles.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Perfect, awesome.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: So two more questions for you, then.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: How do you want people to remember cash flow mike when they think back on your work?
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: authentic, right I?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I think that's the one difference and shift I made in my whole professional career, right?
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, when early on I was trying to be the guy in the suit, I was trying to be the guy you know, uh, going to the conferences that way with the tie and the cufflink, and it just I tried to be the guy you know, going to the conferences that way with the tie and the cuff link, and it just I tried to be something that I wasn't, I think when I shifted to what I really am right, which is a farm kid.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: But when I shifted to that, my life got easier, I felt more natural.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I think the authenticity comes across in everything I do.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So I think that that's you know, it's just the straight BS.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I'm not, it's just straight to you.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be anything that's inauthentic or wrong.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: So good, okay.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Last question for you, mike what's the best piece of advice you've ever received, personally or professionally?
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, that one's easy right.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: I even wrote a blog article on this, probably eight years ago.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: You know it's from my grandfather, right From my grandfather, and it was kind of repeated by a member of my mentor of mine as well, in a different version of it, but my grandfather said it best I was stressed out Right First, starting to run the business pretty stressed out.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I had the ARAP problem with the hotels.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: To run the business pretty stressed out.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I had the ARAP problem with the hotels and I was worried about other things like what was the immigration laws going to happen?
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Because at that point in time they were trying to bring in E-Verify.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: What was that going to cost me to get involved with that and start?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Am I going to have to beef up HR and those types of things?
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: What was I going to have to do different?
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Well, that came with a whole lot of other stress monetarily, legally, all these type of things of what things were happening in the world in the early 2000s.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: And he just sat me down and says hey, control what you can control, that's it.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about the other stuff, you know, because don't fight a battle that hasn't started.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: So they haven't made that decision, they haven't done those things yet.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Control what you can control and don't fight a battle that hasn't started yet, and that's kind of what's led me to here.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: That's so good.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing that.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, control what you can control.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I've certainly been in the boat where I stress about things that haven't even happened yet, and what is I?
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I do think there is a stat on this, one that I feel confident in, but I thought I've seen a stat where 97% of the stuff people stress about never even comes to fruition.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's probably I'm going to lean with that.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say that that's an accurate number.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: But I I, so you know control what you can control, don't fight the battle that never exists or doesn't is not even you know there yet.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: That's awesome, yeah, but you know, what's funny is that.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Here's what I learned in this episode that 85 of stats are all made up.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, there's that one as well.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah well, I'm glad you got to that first instead of someone in the comments after.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: So that's good.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Mike, thank you so much for coming on.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: This was awesome.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I'm so pumped.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I got to meet you a couple of weeks ago at at a girl con.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I hope to see you again very soon in another event or somewhere.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: In passing, um, I love what you're doing.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: How can they get access to more, mike, more of your knowledge?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really cool.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: So I mean, first of all, it's easy, right?
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Just go to cashflowmikecom and here's what I would say.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I have a book called the 7-Minute Conversation.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: It's how to analyze financial statements in seven minutes or less by just six easy calculations.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: What I'm doing on the website right now is I'm giving you not only a free copy of that book, but you're getting the video lesson that goes with it, right?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: So you get the book, the video lesson, you get a spreadsheet to help you do the calculations all of that in one package for the low, low cost of your email address.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Not a bad price.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: That's it, yeah.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Best price going around right now with inflation.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: So that's awesome, mike.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Again, thank you so much for coming on.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: This is incredible For everyone listening.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Please leave a comment, leave a review.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: It helps us grow the show, get more viewership and Mike love what you're doing.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Keep it up.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Thanks, james, appreciate you.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into this episode of CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I hope you found value in today's conversation.
• 32:05
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• 32:08
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• 32:12
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• 32:16
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• 32:19
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• 32:29
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• 32:33
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• 32:42
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• 32:44
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• 32:46
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• 32:50
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• 32:54
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• 33:00
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• 33:06
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• 33:10
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• 33:14
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