← Fullerton Unfiltered
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Foreign. You're now listening to the Fullerton Unfiltered podcast. Straightforward, no nonsense business advice, completely on filter. Grow your business, grow your life. Now here's your host, Brian Fullerton. Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered podcast. It is your host, Brian Fullerton here hanging with you guys and good morning. Well, let's do this really quick. Today's podcast episode. I wanted to keep it short and sweet on a topic that I think would relate and really help out a lot of you guys out there. I know it would have for me a long time ago. And that is the discussion about the difference between a 1099 contractor and a W2 employee. Now, I know a lot of you guys that have been listening for a little while or maybe have ran your own business for, you know, two, four, five, 10 years already, kind of know some of this stuff. Like, that's okay, that's fair, I get it. But for a lot of folks that are maybe in year one, two or three, and you haven't really navigated this, I do want to maybe just share a couple helpful tips for you guys that I think will help with not misclassifying workers, employees, buddies, friends, folks that work for you and help you hopefully avoid any challenging situations with pay payroll taxes, compliance, audits, fees, penalties, interest, and help you to not get in trouble as you look to grow and expand your business. I mean, let's, let's be real. When you first get started in business, and I'm sure a lot of you guys can follow the same exact timeline and chronological growth story as myself, but you get started in business, you want to, of course, cut some grass, plow some snow, and you're looking for some extra help. Hey, I need somebody that can run trimmer. I need somebody that can be on, you know, shovel team. You know, while I'm doing the parking lot, they can do the sidewalks, or when I'm on the mower, they can trim. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a normal evolution of the conversation about getting some extra help. And along the way, that guy is making 12 bucks, 15 bucks, okay, maybe today, $20 an hour cash money. And everything is going great and no big deal. And, you know, you start hitting your first 50 grand in revenue, 75 grand in revenue, 100 grand in revenue, and this guy's making $20 an hour off you, and, you know, it gets to the end of the year and you're like, ah, you know, I'm not really sure what to do with this guy. And the only thing worse than 1099 ing him is just strictly paying him cash. And you know, at the end of the year he doesn't really have any tax returns, but he made, you know, $30,000 cash onto the table or whatever it is. And you're like well I don't know what to do with this guy long term. And then he wants more money. You continue to grow your business, eventually he's making 20, 25, $30 an hour cash money. And you go well like I think I need to put this guy on payroll. And he says, well I don't want to go on payroll. I'm going to lose 10, 20, 30% of my paycheck now to taxes. And if that's going to happen, then I want to get paid an additional $5 more per hour. Now you're like wait a minute, like something is off and something is wrong. Or worse yet, you get a letter in the mail from some three lettered organization, an agency that says hey, you're in trouble, whatever that might look like, right? And so you've done it, I've done it, we've all done it. Likely in one way, shape or form. Now my goal here for today, let's just say you're brand new, you literally got your fein number registered, you're ready to start your business, go to the bank, open up your business bank account. And my prayer would be the exact same day you do that, if you're starting with an employee is going to exactly register 100% with a payroll agency to date, starting now and from day one, you've always had your extra labor right on payroll. Right? Like that would be my second biggest wish for you outside of having liability insurance and or workers comp. Okay, the reason I wanted to talk about this topic today, although very simple, basic, remedial, maybe even for some of you guys out there, is because this time of year there's two folk, folks that usually are having some challenges with this discussion. Usually it's folks that are looking to hire some new team members to go into the spring rush. And again it's your cousin, niece, nephew, brother, sister in law, cousin, whoever. And they want to get paid cash for whatever reason, good, bad or ugly. Hey man, I'm on child support. You know, I'm paying this and I don't want to pay that. They're garnishing my wages. Can you just pay me cash and I'll come mow with you? Yeah, dude, no big deal. And you're like yeah, like, what's the issue? Or hey man, I'm getting unemployment, but if you can pay me 15 bucks on the side, I'll come work with you and get my thousand dollars a week unemployment or whatever crazier things have been done. But that's, that's one side of it. Or, you know, so you're kind of like, hey, I want to grow and I got to pay some people cash money. Like, how do I navigate this? And what's the difference between 1099 in somebody and, you know, W2 employee or the other side of the equation? And I've had a couple emails like this just in the last 30 days. Not to embarrass anybody, not to air anybody's stuff out like this stuff happens. But folks are a couple times in the last couple weeks, hey, you know, I'm doing taxes and my bookkeeper, my CPA are asking some pretty intimate, you know, revealing forensic type questions. And you know, hey, what's this withdrawal and hey, what's this deposit and where is this money going to? And you know, good, bad or ugly again, you know, what do I do in this situation with some team members that might have been getting paid cash on the side? And so I don't want to look at this conversation as like a top down or you're bad or wrong or evil, nothing like that. Again, we've all sinned, quote unquote, and fallen short of the glory. All right, if you will. So let's not worry about any transgressions. The past. Now, I will say let's make sure that we're remedying the future so we don't have to worry about any skeletons in our closet. Amen. But let's talk about this topic for a couple of minutes and let's start really quick with number one, W2 versus 1099. Then we're going to do a little ad break here. Here from today's show, sponsored announcements. And we're going to get into it a little bit more. But let's talk about glossary terms. 1099 versus a W2. Okay, 1099, a very simple fashion. This is somebody that is showing up to a job that you're contracting them out to do and in one way, shape or form, they're using their tools, their truck, their equipment, on their schedule. Right? Like they are coming to do that job in the scope of what you're trying to do or what you need. But you have a written agreement or contract. You have a general timeline of when that piece of the project is getting Done. And they operate as a business like they have their own F, E, I, N, they file taxes, they have their own insurance, okay? That is somebody that you're using for a specialized service, typically, and they're performing or providing you with a service part of typically a roll up job, right? Like you're doing a $10,000 job, a lot of landscaping work, maybe they're doing $2,000 worth of irrigation installs. You have a sub contractor, okay? And at the end of the year, you're going to issue that person, your bookkeeper, your CPA are going to help you do this. You're going to issue them at 1099 and that income, that revenue, you're going to pass on to them and then they're going to receive that income, right. That you paid them on their taxes and pay appropriate taxes on that additional miscellaneous income and revenue. Right? Very, very simple. A W2 is somebody that shows up to your place of employment, whereas your uniform uses your tools, your equipment on your schedule and you pay them via paycheck. That withholds appropriate taxes. Right? At the state, local and obviously federal level. A very, very like simple definitional terms. You cannot 1099 your employee or someone who's behaving like an employee at your company. If your buddy works for you and you're paying him 20 an hour and he worked for eight months and he's got $18,000 that, you know, he made with you, you cannot slap him with a 1099 at the end of the year and just say arbitrarily, you know, he was working for me and this is his, you know, income and he owes 14% or whatever his, you know, tax rate is on that money. And he owes, I don't know, 900 to $1,200 to the, you know, state or to the federal government. Right? That's not how this works. There's going to be a lot of red flags that can get triggered and caught up in this. And then there's taxes and penalties and interest that could turn this into a labor issue that could come back to bite you. Now I want to talk about. We're gonna hear from today's show. Sponsored announcements. But hang with me tight for just a few minutes because I want to give a couple real world examples about how you are circumventing the process and not running things legit are actually hurting you more than they're helping you. Right? Like, I come from this. I come from the hustle side of life. I come from the other side of the tracks. I Come from double wide trailer life. I come from, you know, work a cash job while you're unemployment. I come from the do whatever you can to do a side hustle all the time, you know, blue collar. Not even blue collar, but just like just lower income mentality kind of thing. Like, it was like always take your pop cans back. Wealthy people don't take their pop cans back. Little inside baseball, okay? Coupons and all that, right? Like, that was the world that I grew up in. And boy, like, I was a hustler. So I maximize every single gray area, right, that I ever could along the way. So I know how the game is played, trust me, unfortunately, like to a T. But I want to explain how, like, that's actually, actually a mechanism designed to keep you there and it's not benefiting you, it's not doing you any favors long term. All right? And trust me when I say this, a little bit of mindset shift and a little bit of brain surgery on you guys today if you'll stick with me for just a few minutes, okay? That being said, let me do this really quick little pivot today, real time. I'm actually down in beautiful Raleigh, North Carolina, down here for a John Deere event. A couple folks they brought in here super blessed and honored to even be on the marquee and on the name to come on hang out with these guys. Gonna have some John Deere content coming down the pike for you guys. No big announcements or brain changes or anything like that. I gave John Deere my number. It was, you know, a one with multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple zeros. They said, no. I said, darn, just kidding, sorta. But I said, hey, I will come on down and shoot some videos because they do have a lot of really new, great equipment and mowers. A lot of you guys have seen their stuff at John Deere and I know, or at Equip Expo for John Deere. And I know a lot of you guys run Deere and again, fantastic brand, legacy brand. I mean, like, I don't even know if there's anybody as big in the whole space right as John Deere, if you will. So very, very, like, hollow ground. Like, holy cow, I'm hanging out with John Deere's hq. Like, that's pretty cool for a special invite. So check that one off the box, like, hey, bucket list for your boy. So I'm really proud of that. But we're down here for a day or so shooting some content and then we'll be back home and hopefully roll that out to you guys. But one thing I will say, besides this fun trip and the content I'm going to bring to you guys, just a quick little date in the calendar. April 9, attentive and element are doing a co sponsored, whatever you want to call it, webinar on Attentive, which is going to be really cool. I don't have like a code to offer on that. It's not my gig. I am invited on as a panelist, which is really cool. So I'll be sharing a little bit more about our experience with Attentive. You guys heard about a week and a half ago, we had that demo Saturday morning and it was a really, really great conversation. We had about 30 or so people on it. About 90 people registered the replay. I'm going to drop on YouTube in the next couple of days. If you happen to be on the ninth webinar, use promo code Brian's50 and save you half off on your Attentive membership. Because I ain't getting paid to be on this thing. I'm volunteering my time because I'm a sucker. And I just love, honestly, like being on and just helping you guys. And if you notice, my Instagram profile changed it about four or five months ago. It says like, speaker trainer, podcaster, founder. Like I, I really do sincerely, like, want to fall in the footsteps of like the Marty Grunders and the Mark Bradleys and just give back and pour into people. And so I mean, dude, I, I will do this all day long for free. I just feel this is in my lane. It's part of my calling right now. I just sincerely want to help you guys grow a better business and make more money and, you know, just help Brian Fullerton of 10 Years Ago, 20 Years Ago. So anyway, April 9, there's a registered webinar that you can attend with LMN and Attentive. Come check it out. You know, come hang out and, you know, take a quick peek and peep at the demo that they do that day of attendance platform. And if it's for you, fantastic. And if it's not, hey, absolutely no big deal. But I did see that one on the calendar. So that is going to be on Thursday the 9th. All right, that being said, hang with me for just a couple of quick more minutes. I do want to talk about this topic more because I think it'll give you guys some really strong persuasive thoughts to carry about why you should be moving to payroll. All right, so let's do this for a quick minute. Let's hear from today's show sponsors and announcements and we're going to come right on back.
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Are you ready to grow your lawn care or landscaping business? At lawntrepreneur Academy, you'll learn real world strategies to start, grow and scale a successful lawn care company from industry leader Brian Fullerton. Inside the academy, you'll find training, resources and a powerful community of lawn care professionals all working toward the same goal, building better businesses. Join Lynq and get access to weekly webinars, live coaching calls, and a private community where you can ask questions, share ideas, and learn from others in the industry. If you're ready to take your business to the next level, visit lawntrepreneuracademy.com and start building the lawn care business you've always dreamed of. An easy to use link is in the podcast description.
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All right, hopping back into it here. So you guys understand now, right? If you did it before. Definitions, glossary terms of 1099 versus a W2 employee. And again, I'm not saying you're not going to get a miscellaneous 1099 from a company, a brand, a Venmo. You know, maybe you're selling something on the side. My wife and I, we did, we made signs. I mean, literally like wood signs that said like cute names. And we had a 1099 for that miscellaneous income from Etsy. So, like, many of you guys are pretty familiar with a 1099, but the difference between a 1099 and, and the W2 is that one's an employee, one's a contractor. Like, long story short, if you can remember any one thing, and what I really want to encourage you guys to do is like to get away, to get away from paying your guys cash money. Okay? There's a lot of ramifications that even I don't know every, like, in and out. And I'm not trying to put the fear of God in you, but I will tell you, like, honestly, you should be afraid because you do not need to pay penalties, interest fees and fines over something that can be solved so simply, which is just putting your people on payroll. Now, I will say this. Let me name drop. Gusto. Gusto. Gusto. Gusto. Okay, I've had an endless amount of people want me to do a podcast episode on Gusto for payroll. Now, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to make this huge pitch for Gusto. What I will say is use a payroll provider. There's adp, there's paychecks, there's Gusto, there's Dozens of them. You're a small town bookkeeper and CPA can help you with a payroll solution, but I will just encourage you to please use some type of platform and get your guys on it immediately. This isn't a, hey, I'm going to get on this in June after I get through the spring rush. This isn't a, I'm going to do this in August once it's hot out, and this is the dog days of summer, and I'll do it when I can catch up and take a nap. This isn't, I'll get through this season and then start taking care of it in October as we go into winter. Okay, this is a pick up the phone and call somebody tomorrow suggestion, because it is that important. And I don't want you to continue to kick the can down the road for something that is a compliance conversation. We're talking bookkeeping, doing your taxes, filing your quarterlies. Folks, more people go out of business for this kind of crap than any other thing in business. It's not sales, it's not revenue, it's not even profit that's going to get you smoked from this thing. It is going to be not paying your quarterly taxes, not paying your annual taxes, not paying your sales tax. It's taxes, bro. It's just taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes. At the end of the day, you're like, what? What the hell do I have left? Right? Okay, I'm with you there. That's another conversation for another time. But taxes, taxes, tax. Okay, now here's the deal. A lot of you guys have asked me to talk about Gusto. I've. I've been a little bit more hesitant because it's like a platform you want to, like, see, not just hear about. But what I'll tell you is I've asked, like, a couple times for the Gusto team to, like, do a demo inside baseball. Can't get anybody to really, like, answer the phone. And also, my account is like, you click one thing and you see everybody's information. You click one other page, you see, obviously everybody's information. And I'm like, I'm not really sure how to, like, do a demo of my Augusto account without showing what my guys make or what is withheld or what we're paying. Augusto is integrated. And so with our bank account, which is pretty obvious, and it shows a real time snapshot of what's in the balance, which I don't mind showing, like, I'm pretty proud of that. But at the same point, I'm like, that's probably a little, like, too intimate, right? A little bit too naked. So I don't know how to show you a demo of the platform, and I can't get anybody from the mothership to really pick up the phone and use or to give us a demo so we can show people how to use the platform. I will just say, if you do want to sign up with Gusto, we do have a code. This is one of those where, like, I make a couple hundred bucks and you make a couple hundred bucks, like, legit. If you do want to use our code, please do me a solid and, like, shoot me an email and I'll get you our link and register with us and then sign up if you like it and then process payroll and legit. I get a couple hundred bucks. You get a couple hundred bucks. A lot of you guys have actually used our code. Like, thank you, thank you, thank you. That means a lot. Like, I think we got a couple hundred dollar gift card just a couple of weeks ago, the week I went down to Disney and I was like, dude, free food for the day. Which lasted till about noon. Okay. But anyway, because, you know, corn dogs are like $60 at Disney. Right? First world problems. But anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you. But I'll just tell you, like, again, not a huge pitch for Gusto. You get your own app, you get a portal, process payroll, same day, next day or two days later, it integrates. Everybody's got access to the portal so they can see their payroll real time. All the guys can log in on their phone, or you can get an iPad at the shop. Like, dude, it's awesome. And I, again, about, I don't know, about a year ago, asked you guys, hey, what payroll people are using. It was paychecks. Adp. Gusto. Gusto. Gusto. ADP Gusto. Gusto. Paychecks. Gusto. Gusto. I was like, sounds like it's Gusto. Just like with coast pay fuel cards. It was Coast Wax. Coast Coast Wax. Coast Coast Wax and Speedway. I was like, okay, sounds like we're going coast. Like, I'm not. I'm not here to, like, reinvent the wheel, bro. Like, whatever works for you guys works for me. And if you guys have already navigated these questions and problems and bottlenecks, is a lot of you guys listening and have the same size or bigger business? Like, why would I spend all day reinventing the wheel? I'm gonna do what you guys do. Just, like, a lot of you guys are trying and wanting to emulate and do what I'M doing. Like, that's how we all learn together. So anyway, no big pitch for gusto, but that's who we're using, and I've been extremely happy with them. No issues, really. I mean, like, took a couple months to kind of get my information and my payroll rates and all this stuff. And I did have to ask a couple questions to my bookkeeper, my cpa, because they're asking, like, withholding rates and this stuff, and I'm like, dude, I don't freaking know. Like, I have no idea. And it was like a couple emails back and forth, and I got the right rates, the right numbers, the right codes, and everything was, like, ready to go. And after that, you just submit your hours on the portal every two weeks. It's honestly very, very simple stuff. All right, let's go to back to the payroll kind of conversation. What I want to talk about at the top of the hour before we hit the commercial break was you running your guys on cash is not like, actually helping your business grow. A lot of you guys have seen a lot of pricing videos I've done lately, like, showing our element screen, and this was like a really illuminating conversation. But inside baseball as an example, we and you guys both know, we all know now, right? Like, $20 an hour employee doesn't cost you $20 an hour to run that guy when he's on payroll and when he's legitimately part of your business and you're covering, recovering that overhead for that labor, that guy with labor burden, unbillable time, overtime. The true cost of running that 20, you know, $5 an hour employee is really like 35 to $37, depending on taxes and rates and percentages, right? And imagine this. Let's say that you're loosely figuring out your pricing and you're like, hey, all these big guys in town for residential sub are charging 55 bucks. I'm going to come through because I pay my guys cash money. I have less overhead. I run it out of my garage or a storage locker, and I could cut that same property for $35 or $40. And because I pay my guys cash money, I don't have to worry about payroll taxes and withholding and, you know, all the different taxes associated with payroll. So I can come down on my price and you can, you can for a little while, right? Couple days, couple weeks. Couple months. Maybe a couple years, depending how, how. How demon air, you know, and how suave you are. But two things. One, you could have been charging the same market rate, sold a higher touch relationship and, you know, made an extra $10 per cut times, you know, 80 weekly MO's, times 27 weeks, times three years, you probably lost $80,000. But not knowing your numbers, okay, irrelevant. But at the same point, what you didn't do is you didn't really grow your skill set. You didn't really grow your mindset. You didn't really grow your business muscle, right? To run your business a legitimate way. You shortcutted the shortcut. The shortcut is your budget. The shortcut is payroll. The shortcut is paying taxes to, in my opinion, live the number one lifestyle in America, being an entrepreneur, a profitable business owner, right? So you think you're smart. You think you're gaming the system. The reality is you're not really having enough resistance in your business to flex your muscle, to train your muscle, your brain and your muscle on how to grow a real profitable business and develop the hard skills to go along with making that business work, right? Like you don't have to get good at sales when you're undercutting everybody by 25% because you're not paying taxes and you're not insured, right? So really, you think you're being smart or you're being suave. The reality is you're doing yourself an injustice. You're doing yourself a disservice. You're not holding yourself to a high enough standard to fix the things that you need to do in your business. You might lose a couple accounts because you realize you're pricing yourself out of what you sold those customers on, and they're done that. And you're not interested in paying the full price of success. You're just not willing to do what it takes to actually run a real legitimate business. And by the way, that's why your business won't be worth anything to sell 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 years later, because nothing is documented, legitimate, legitimized, and you don't have an exit or the enterprise value or the upside or the big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, right? And I'm not saying like that to be mean. I'm not saying that to be right. I'm not saying that to be anything other than. That's just the reality of how it works. And so in the beginning, you do it out of convenience. Then you do it because you think you're smarter maybe than everybody else or it's the convenient thing to do in some way or shape or form. And again, no indictment, not judging. I'm just saying. And then you realize, because you get a letter in the mail or your bookkeeper starts asking questions or your CPA start asking questions and you start to getting a little ahead of yourself and you get a little over your skis and you go, I need to figure this thing out. And then you don't figure it out for one year, two years, three years. And then all of a sudden something triggers something that catches something. And now you're going to have this 2, 5, 10, $20,000 bill, penalties, interest, fines, whatever, and you're going to be cooked. And this happens, unfortunately every day, not just in lawn care, I mean every day in America. Because the biggest crackdown that the IRS and all these folks that are trying to do right now is on companies that twofold, one, are having an excessive amount of 1099s and those folks should be on W2s. So think about all the penalties, fees and interest on those Ms. Categorizations of employment help. And then two, the other one whole other conversation is the distribution income for Companies that are LLCs, taxes and S Corp, right, where people are paying themselves 25 grand a year salaries and $250,000 a year distributions, right? Because they're not subject to federal withholding, I believe, right. On distributions. Just state taxes, I believe. Don't hold me to that. But if you pay yourself 200 grand in distributions and you're supposed to be with holding or paying in, you know, whatever the market rate is on Social Security, federal tax, Medicare, Medicaid, whatever, whatever, right? And let's say it's like 12 and a half percent or whatever per 100 grand and you owe $25,000 in taxes per year on let's say that 200 grand grand or 250 grand of distribution income, but you're making a 25 grand a year salary that is paying the full tax rate, right? It looks like you are gaming the system as a llc, taxes and S Corp and deciding to have a small salary, big distributions instead of having a market rate salary and some distributions, right? It'd be much more healthier to have a 150 or $200,000 salary market rate salary for an owner of a landscape company doing a million dollars and 50 to 100 grand maybe distributions from net profit out of the business than to be making 25 grand salary and $200,000 in distributions, right? Like this stuff matters and people like all you do is promote cycle CPA and all you do is promote gusto payroll and all you do is promote LMN and it's an ad Fest. And it's a pitch fest. And I'm like, if you were on my side of the aisle and all you did all day long was field 50 dms a day, 12 emails a day, 20 frickin Facebook messenger messages a day, 30 conversations a day in lingq. That doesn't count. Everybody who's got my cell phone number and texts and phone calls, and you had 50 to 100 inputs a day. A day. Easily. Easily a day. That doesn't count. A hundred comments a day on YouTube videos. That doesn't count. 20 to 100 comments a day on Instagram on varying, you know, reels and posts and shorts and YouTube videos. And you see all this stuff happening, you would go like, people need help. People need to learn. People need this explained to them. I know I did and I know I still do. So yeah, this is a very important topic. I understand you being in business now for eight years doing 700,000, you're like, Dude, I got it licked. I got my brother, sister's cousin who does our bookkeeping and payroll, like we're good to go. That's fine. I'm talking about the dude doing $140,000 this year and is looking at a $12,000, you know, penalties, fees and interest tax bill. And oh, by the way, he hasn't even heard about charging for sales tax. You know, maybe in his local town, municipality, city or state, depending on where he's at, if he even has that. Right. Like this stuff matters. Okay? So I don't want to just gloss over it, okay? It doesn't make you better as a business owner by not charging for these things or equating these things into your overhead, it makes you lazy. And I'll tell you, as somebody who came from that side of the aisle, came from that side of the tracks, or came from that side of the thought process, I can assure you it's hopefully not going to be as dramatic of a shift for you, but I can tell you it was a pretty big teeth pull for me. A lot of you guys have seen my story and seen our business and seen things evolve. Hey, we went from a 270,000 gross business with 120 clients in 2000 or so. 2001 Covid happened. Everything flipped upside down. Today our residential business is probably about 35 out of those 120 customers. Probably 116 were residential. We're down to 35 out of our commercial accounts. We have about 30, 35, 40 ish sites, if you will. Revenue on a rolling 12, like low to mid sixes. Actually I think it was like 670,000. Like we're on trend for like 670, maybe 700,000. Actually I think we just got off our CFO bookkeeping meeting went on trend. We're at like 8. I think it's like 890,000 or something. If we keep, keep the pace that we're on. Like something ridiculously good. I think it was 59 year over year growth is what we're trending. To project. To get to 5 million in five years, we need 89% year over year growth. Right now we're at like 56 or 59%. Whatever, dude. I don't know. Like giant spreadsheets, lot of time. Amazing. With Cycle, cpa. Sure. Okay, we're. Are we doing good? We're doing good. That's all I need to know. Keep doing what we're doing. Yeah, keep doing what you're doing. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. That's all I need to know. Like I, I don't know what this means. I don't know what that number means. I don't know. I don't care, frankly. I even told Cycle and my cfo, fractional cfo, I said I got bandwidth for about, excuse me, three or four data points from you guys say with love, but I'm like, give me about three or four data points so I can really wrap my brain around because those are the pulses I need to check to keep this thing alive. If I work on about those three or four pulses, receivables, pipeline, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Net in gross margin. Is that okay? Is that what I need to work on? Yep. Okay, so I need to know. But you can see five years later, probably 70 to 80. 90, right. 70 to 80% of my clientele is completely different. And the revenue we captured today, sales versus back then sales, probably 90 plus percent of our revenue is totally different. Five years later, including our pricing. As you can imagine, that's a transparent conversation that I hope you guys appreciate the candidness. Like I hope you guys appreciate like that the show even exists. I hope you guys appreciate like I would even talk and say and share stuff like that. That's ridiculous to say. That's ridiculous to share. That's incredibly. I don't know if that's exciting or embarrassing, but this stuff matters. And I started realizing this stuff eight years ago, 2018, 2019, I was like, I gotta start fixing a bunch of stuff and grow up. We've always had people in one way, shape or form getting a Paycheck, that's. That's been pretty consistent for a while. Not always, but for quite a long time. Ever since I've been on YouTube. Maybe like just right before, right after. But I knew as soon as I got on YouTube, I'm like, you know, public figure I should probably do everything right. Everything. As much as right as possible. Start hiring employees. Trust me, you better start doing things right. Because you never know. You don't want to have a bad story, a bad situation, a bad example. There's no favorites in my company. There's no favoritism in my company. We have the employee handbook. That's the law of the land, even for me. And what I do at the company. I show up every day in uniform. I show up every day on time. I'm on the staff, bro. I get a paycheck, and I've got to set the standard, all right? It doesn't make you better by fudging the system again. I'm not here to indict anybody come down on you, put the fear of God in you, nothing like that. But I do want to just draw attention to it, okay? It is so easy to just say, hey, man, you want a job? Yep. What are you guys paying? Oh, 20 bucks. He goes, how about 25? He goes, sure. He goes, that's cash, right? And go. No, that's on payroll. Everybody in America quotes what they make, and that's the gross number. I'm an Engineer. I make $80,000. Cool. True. Take home net. You're going to be about 57,000 bucks. You're losing about a third of that sucker. The taxes. Nobody tells you what they make. I'm sorry, what they keep. They tell you what they make. I'm an Engineer. I make $90,000. Cool. After taxes, what do you make? $61,000. Cool. So you live on $5,000 a month. Fantastic. But everybody's gonna tell you the gross, not the net. When people start working for us, we feel like it's some moral obligation to pay them the gross number cash. No, no, that's a you problem, buddy. 25 gross on payroll is going to net you $21 an hour. That. That's not my problem. You don't like that, go take it up with the election every four, four years. You don't like this country? Don't like that country. This country manipulates this country to get that country. This country. And that country is about the oil. And about that. No, no, don't care. I'll never know. And by the way, listening to this show. Neither will you. Neither will you. Sorry. Shit rolls downhill and we're all about 15,000 leagues under the sea from the tip of the mountain about how this thing actually works. So in the meantime, pay your taxes, do whatever you can to legally minimize them. By the way, take advantage of payroll deductions, right? And you're in writing off your payroll. That's an expense. And stockpile food and ammo. But Anyway, in your five GS, right? Guns, oil, gas, whatever they say. Like gas, guns, gold, whatever. The five GS are right. Squirrel. All right, here's where I'm just Wrap it up. Please know and understand and remember the difference between 1099 and W2.1 shows up for themselves, the other one's showing up for themselves. But works for you, right? Very, very simple distinction, okay? Get a payroll company taking care of your guys. On paper, on paper, on payroll, asap. Like this week, call up somebody, go to Gusto, book a demo. Please use our code. Go to bookkeeper in my town. Ask me if they do payroll or payroll service. In my town, millions of people sell payroll. For real. There's 50 million adults in the country or 100 million or 50 million homeowners, but 175 million adults, 100 million kids, whatever. Every company in America has to process payroll. There's literally people all day, full time job, six figure income earners. Gold star, platinum Diamond Achiever award, President's club. Come on down. Bring them on stage. At Fidelity. Oh, down in St. Thomas, they get the trip of the year. Top sales producer in the whole company. Sold 10 million payroll accounts. Like, no shit. Real jobs, real people. Real like real income. If you don't work in lawn care and it doesn't work out for you, go sell payroll. Go sell real estate. I don't care. Or there are really people who sell payroll service all freaking day. And they'll call on you like your Unilock rep calls you, or diamond lattice blades from Caleb Allman show. That's what he says, right? But please get your payroll figured out. Again, not trying to be mean or rude or a jerk or funny or a clown. I'm just telling you like I care about this because I had three or so emails just on this topic just in the last couple of weeks. Come on in. One or two from closing out 25 books. One or two going into the spring rush. Hey, I got this guy. What do I do? Look, I don't care if your guy, like has any challenges, any issues that should already weed them out. Not tried to weed them in. Imagine like some guys like, hey, ma', am, I got some back taxes, I got some wage garnishments, but I'm solid hard worker. I just need you to pay me 25 an hour cash under this table in a blow over just for a couple months. But if you can do that, pay me about 800,000 bucks a week. 800 bucks a week? I'll work for you, bro. And you're like, dude, I've got a crew lead. I need a guy for that route. That's my dude. That's my dude, bro. Try harder. Like, that is not your guy. Think about it. The guy lacks integrity. He's dishonest. He's lying about that. Wonder what else he's lying about. He probably is challenged with some other issue. Substance abuse, who knows what or why or whatever. Clearly has a history with some drama. You're inheriting a basket case of problems. Pandora's box of problems that you do not need, right? And you're like, man, I gotta make this thing work. That is a major red flag about exactly who not to likely hire for your company. Okay, little, A little obvious, but sometimes we're in the thick of it. I get it. And you're like, man, you know what? Like, it'd be nice to have that rig go out today. Like, somebody's got to go mow that hoa. Listen, dude, God forbid you hire them. God forbid something happens, God forbid he has an accident. He's a cash pay employee. Cuts off his freaking leg, right, With a lawnmower or something gets mangled. And then you have a worker's comp claim for a cash employee that doesn't exist for you. Like, good luck with whatever three letter organization shows up at your door with a pen and paper and a digital recorder and wants to get your official statement. And by the way, here's a quick tip. You are going to lose big. And that guy, regardless of him being a bozo, is going to clean you out. He is going to win big. Like six and seven figures big out of you. Well, I don't have it. I assure you, you will come up with it over the rest of your lifetime. Like we've already told you, the shortcut is doing it the right way. That is the shortcut. Don't shortcut the shortcut. All right, I do this episode out of love. I talk about this only because I see it so prevalent in so many areas of business and life and this and that. Folks, please treat it serious and let's put an end to this stigma, you know, in our industry of doing things this way. All right, it doesn't make you better, it makes you worse in my opinion. All right, that's what I got for you guys in today's show. A little bit different topic. Hopefully you guys got one or two thoughts or tips out of this and if you guys do and enjoy it, feel free to hit subscribe like follow along, whatever you guys want to do. Leave us a rating review if you don't mind. It's been a while since we've asked that, but we'd love to hear how we're doing. So if you guys don't mind leaving a comment, always appreciate that. Other than that, hope to see a bunch of you guys on the LMN sponsored attentive webinar on not January Jesus April 9 here on Thursday. And if you guys do need anything else in the meantime, LMN Gusto promo code Brian or Ninja va Brian 100 equipment defender Cujo Ballard isotunes Brian's 10 saves you 10 worldwide. We got a code. I'm sure our name Brian is somewhere in the name of it. And if you are going to register with somebody and you want to check in with us, shoot me a DM or an email and we'll make sure you get the latest code, the latest deal and set you up with somebody to help you have success with that platform. So folks, I love you. Sincerely, I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening in. Your listen means the world to us and we can't thank you enough for joining with us for 45 minutes day with your very expensive time, your very valued time. I don't take that for granted. So thank you guys for spending some of your time with me today. All right, love you guys. Appreciate you. Have a great day and look forward to catching up with all you guys here on the next one.
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A
The presale window is open now for an incredible 9.99.
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B
On April 22, the price increases to $24.99. Get in early at launchpreneuracademy.com
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C
thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast with Bryan Fullerton. We hope you enjoyed this production. If so, please consider leaving us a five star review for the show. While the techniques and ideas presented here are designed to help you grow a more successful and profitable business, no one can guarantee these results for you. We want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not easy and the ideas presented here are just the opinions of Brian Fullerton and his respective guests. No one can guarantee success for you. That being said, we hope the ideas presented here help you and motivate you to go on out there and crush it with your own business.
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A
Fuller Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast thanks for listening
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C
and we hope to see you on the next episode.
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This has been a Brian Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.