Profit First?!

I picked up Profit First by Mike Michalowicz after seeing a former MLM friend post about her new read on Facebook.

I figured this might solve my cash flow problem, but as I was reading I noticed something peculiar.

First, it was the blatant lie that the book was front loaded with information.  I needed to fast forward to chapter 6 to get any sort of real information.

Like most books this one was more of a invisible funnel than an educational masterpiece.  As I realize that he’s trying to prime me to email him, visit his website for the figures (I bought the audio book!) or listen to his vast testimonials I wondered if I had been taken advantage of.

Certainly his method of taking profit first which is literally about 1-20% off the top of the gross and siphoning it into a hard to reach account to reward yourself, pull from when re-investing, or in my logic use to create financial investments was sound.

In fact – Profit First is Great Logic

I calculated my gross out to be slightly under 10K a month, but my take home $$ being about 4K a month.  (which was a serious slap in the face)

Now, as suggested by Motor Bike Mike I wouldn’t miss 1% of that gross being a mere $100 and pushing it into another account out of my reach.  Given that “smaller plate” I would have less $$ to consume.

Less $$ to consume =

• More innovation to control business expenses
• Higher frugality to throttle costs of living
• More focus on profit

This makes great sense and I plan to do follow through.  However, as I thought to myself how he mentioned associating pleasure (think Tony Robbins “Awaken the Giant Within) with saving money rather than spending money that I had been tricked by Grant Cardone’s logic.

I would always be very very frugal, but good old Uncle G taught me to keep my mindset on making money instead of saving money.  He said that focusing on saving money would put you into a scarcity mindset rather than an abundance mindset.

Let’s face it – the abundance mindset has definitely got me into trouble.  Heck I bought the Cardone University which was crap.  That beat em up, follow up and follow up again method of sales didn’t work for marketing.  I now follow the Sandler rules with much more success.  (no more memorizing closes! although the disease close was ridiculous!)

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Thinking back to my abundance mindset and what it has done for me…

I’ve made serious investments in the last 9 months and my cash flow hasn’t gone up very significantly.  Although I don’t want to remove my “Go For It!!” attitude I know that I need to be much more frugal with my spending because if my income goes up, but my cost of living just continues to rise then I’ll be a rich poor man.

I battle on this logic because it’s hard to save when your only bringing home a couple Gs every month.

I will be setting up my profit first account and try to push it up to 5% in the coming months.  However, I’ll push that account into my Ally investment account to buy a couple safe stocks.

Scheduling my time around tasks is coming back

So today was just an OK day.  I didn’t work as hard as I normally work because I was doing some early morning errands and I also didn’t have a set schedule.  Every time I started a task I realized that I’ve got to do another task.

I left my most important task for the end of the day.  I’m spending the next 5 minutes to schedule what I need to do the day before.  I read about this tactic in the book Instant Focus: How to Beat Procrastination, Skyrocket your Productivity, and Double your Output – 27 Small Tweaks to Do More in Less Time.

It’s been a while since I picked it up, but the takeaways that stuck was to batch your like tasks and setup your goals for the day + calendar the night before.

I give Day 2 a 6/10

Finishing up Monday

As I talked about in my previous post I’ve got to really step up my level of commitment to be a true entrepreneur.

My cash flow last month was $770  As of now it’ll be much less this month because I’m investing in Sandler Sales Training for a cool $850 and opening up a second location for my gym.  I’ve got to hold myself accountable and bring it up to $1000 per month even with my constant reinvestment.

I also re-joined Ally, the stock trading company formerly known as Trade King.  I setup a small auto-deposit to make sure I’m investing.  I’ll put the money in SBUX (Starbucks) or another blue chip dividend stock.

So, I basically need to pull in another $1100 to keep my 1 month goal.  When that happens I’ll book that family vacation and squash my other goal.  This weekend, unless Chloe (my daughter) is sleeping I’ll be spending quality time with her.

I sealed up a small deal today that’ll add a cool $200, so I’m on my way.

Client Acquisition is my ONE Thing

I’ve been an “entrepreneur” for about 2 years now.  I want to say that I feel like I’m doing well, but I’ve made many mistakes along the way.

• I’ve spent 10s of thousands of dollars on training that never made me $$.
• I’ve wasted time seeking out opportunities and fallen into shiny shit syndrome
• I’ve spent hours getting distracted and made up for that time by taking vital hours away from my family time
• I missed the first 6 months of my daughter’s life
• I bought doodads instead of assets

I’ve got a lot to regret, but I don’t.  I know that this journey is about accepting failure as progress.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…

From this day forward, things will be different.

I WILL NOT BE:

• Distracted by video games (I contacted battle.net and deleted my account permanently)
• Consumed by social media as a user (pawn)
• Beating myself up on finances
• Trying to save $10 when I should be focusing on making $100

..an average freelancer

…a mediocre business owner

….a father that works too much

Focusing on my Strength

Before I had sworn to myself that I’d never take another class, but yet again I’m investing (money I don’t have) in a Sandler Selling Course.  I’ll be focusing the majority of my time on sales training and become a master at sales.

I’ll focus my time on client acquisition 9-5 and leave the rest of the time for keeping my current clientele happy and building my personal training business.

My 1 Month Goals:

1/3 is my goal due date:

Financial: Bank $1000 every month

Family: Uninterrupted time with Chloe on the weekends

Lifestyle: Book a Seasonal Vacation

I had talked about these goals my 180 Daily Blitz Post on October 5th, but only reached one of them.  My family goal – it’s not exactly uninterrupted time on the weekends, but rather I take 2 nights a week that I have my daughter for the night.  ~It’s awesome, we have fun, bond and I feel like a successful father.

I’m still working to having the weekends be just about family and heading up to Vermont every weekend to snowboard and relax with the family.

Often I forget about the blog when I get down and busy, but this time around I’ll be checking in daily.  I’ll work hard today and do a post at the end of the day.