← The Amy Porterfield Show
The Amy Porterfield Show
Profit > Revenue: Tiny Tweaks, Bigger Take‑Home
00:45:54
Find The Hidden Profit Potential That Already Exists In Your Business
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- [00:02]
A
Hey there.
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B
Welcome to the Amy Porterfield Show.
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A
You need to run a sustainable business that is paying you well so that you will continue to be here. I think sometimes people think, oh, what about my customers and my clients? Well, you're not going to be able to have any customers or clients if you're not running a business with sustainable profit margins that ensure you're going to be here a year from now.
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B
So I've got this program called the Millie Club. I've talked about it before on the podcast. And each cohort is a group of 30 entrepreneurial women that are working toward a million dollar year in their business, which is a really big milestone. And inside the Millie Club, one of the things I've noticed is that the biggest aha moments, the light bulbs that are popping off throughout the six months usually are related to data and numbers, really understanding their numbers. And here's what I mean. So let's say that you want to do a launch and you want to make $50,000 in your launch. Well, if you told me that, the first question I would ask is how much profit do you want to make? And so if you said, okay, Amy, I want to make a 40% profit off this launch of $50,000, I'd say, okay, great. But then that's where the real work begins. Reverse engineering your numbers so you know exactly how many leads you need to get from your email list and how many leads you need to get from ads and then understanding how much are you willing to pay to get those leads into, let's say a webinar. And then you need to understand how many people do you need on your webinar if there's going to be, let's say a 30% show up rate and you think you can convert at 8%. So how many sales can you get based on how many people on the webinar? 30% show up rate, 8% conversion. And that's just the live webinar. What about after the webinar, the emails that go out and you're converting through emails, how many of those need to convert in order to hit your 50,000 revenue goal? Like that's what I'm talking about. Like really understanding your numbers and some of you are listening and you're like, amy, I do that all day long. And some of you are listening, thinking, I don't know my numbers at that level. Like understanding your P and LS and understanding your lead count and your conversions on your webinars and your conversions in your bootcamp and how it all leads to that number that you really want to hit. And that number that you really want to hit, it shouldn't be revenue. You should be thinking in terms of profit. And so inside my Millie club, these are the private conversations that we're having around how important it is to understand your numbers and really stay focused on your profit. And that's when I see the light bulbs go off. Because when they start to understand their numbers more, they start to have an easier time scaling their business. And that's my most favorite thing. I believe the more you understand your numbers, the easier it is to run your business. The less time you spend in your business, the less overwhelm, the less imposter syndrome people. Because when you know your numbers, there's a confidence that comes with that. So seeing my Millie members just have so much confidence is my most favorite moment. Speaking of the Millie Club, in a few days I'm going to open up enrollment for the third cohort. I'm so excited. If you're interested at all and you want to learn about the Millie Club, just go to amyporterfield.com Millie you might find a wait list or the doors might be open and you might find all the details. So amyporterfield.com millie but when I think about the women in the Mille Club really understanding their numbers and their confidence soaring, I think I have to take this outside of the Millie club. We've got to talk about it here on the podcast because I want this for all of you. So if you've ever felt like your business is moving forward, you are making money, the sales are coming in, your audience is even growing, your email list is growing, but your bank account doesn't reflect all the hard work that you've put put into this, then today's episode is going to be a game changer because here's one truth that I have learned over the years and that I want you to hear today. You can't grow, you can't scale what you don't fully understand. You can't scale, you can't grow what you fully don't understand. And when it comes to building a truly sustainable business, which I know you want, one that actually supports your lifestyle and your goals, understanding your numbers is non negotiable. Understanding your numbers is non negotiable. Now, when I say that, if that makes you feel a certain tinge in your stomach or like, oh, damn, I don't know if I know my numbers well enough, well, stick around because my guest today, Jamie Troll, is about to make it feel so much more doable and hopefully just spark you to say, okay, enough is enough. I'm going to become an expert of all experts in my numbers. You don't need to be a cpa. You don't need to be a mathematician. I am not super skilled at numbers, but I really make sure that I understand my business numbers, meaning, like, I'm not really great at math, but I am now really great at understanding my numbers. And that's all you need to be my friend. You just need to be great at understanding your numbers. So I said, you don't need to be a cpa. Well, it just so happens our guest today, she is a CPA turn profit strategist. She'll take that role for us right now. She's one of my star students. We won't get into why she's a star student, but dang, she's been with me for a long time. She's had such great success in her business, which is why I love that you're going to learn from another female entrepreneur that is in the trenches selling courses and memberships and is an affiliate. Like all the things that many of you are, she just so happens to be also an expert in helping you build your profits. Now, if you listen to my old episode, the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, she was on it several times and so you might have heard from Jamie, but today she's on my new podcast, obviously, and we're getting into all the things related to numbers. So I've actually talked about numbers on, on this podcast. It was episode 21 and it was essentially the numbers that every entrepreneur should be tracking and looking at on a regular basis. So if you think of that episode 21, it's just amyporterfield.com forward/21. If you think of that episode as the what, like, what number should you be tracking? This episode is the how and again, how to find hidden profits in your business that are absolutely there. So that's what we're going to be talking about today, how to find hidden profits in your business without working more or working harder. So it's a clear, practical episode. You're going to think, oh, why didn't I think of this sooner? So it's going to be one of those episodes. So, my friend, let's get to it. Before we dig into all the strategy we're going to talk about today, I would love for you to share a little bit about what inspired you to focus on helping small business owners find the profit in their business, not just the revenue Which I love because I love to talk about profit as, you know, most people talk about revenue. So we're on the same page with that, for sure. So why does this work matter so much to you?
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A
Yeah, I think it really started with just seeing how much people and business owners tend to really, you know, determine the success of their business, often on that top line revenue number. Right. How much is coming in. And of course that's important, important. But at the end of the day, what really matters is how much you're actually taking home. Right. How much can you use in your life to pay yourself to do the things that you want to do in life? Otherwise we can end up kind of, you know, just working for our business our whole life. And so I think that focus on revenue is starting to shift. I'm seeing more conversations about profit and the importance of having a sustainable profit. So that's been really nice to see. But I want to just kind of put a fine point on that, on that whole topic, because it is really the critical thing. And I talk about this a lot, where if you, you know, make a million dollars, a lot of people have these sort of, you know, big numbers, right? And it's fine to have a milestone number in your head because you think it's going to make you feel a certain way or it's going to feel like an accomplishment. But at the end of the day, if making, you know, a million dollars at a 5,5% profit margin, you're only bringing home $50,000. So essentially every dollar you make, you're only taking home, you know, a nickel from. And that, to me, is a lot of hustle, and I'm not a hustle person. So profit is more about how do we do this and not have to hustle so hard. Right.
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B
Amen to that. Okay, so what's a simple way someone can figure out where their profit is really coming from? Actually, let's back up before you answer that question. I know a number one question that's going to come out is, what should my profit be? Like, what should my profit margin be? And, you know, I teach courses and I talk about this a lot, but what do you say to people because they're in all different industries that you serve all different types of products and programs, when they say, well, Jamie, what is my goal for my profit margin?
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A
Yeah, I think a lot of people want to have really specific rules of thumb, and there is some industry guidelines and things like that out there that you can look at. But here's the problem with them. Most Industry guidelines are basically based off of big corporate companies and what their profit margins are. So a lot of people will come to me and they'll say, oh, in my industry, 10% is a good profit margin. And to me I would say that's not comparing apples to apples. Right. And it can be different too, depending on if you're, you know, a small business, a restaurant in a small town or city. City. It can be completely different based on your clientele, based on a lot of different things. And so I tend to rebel a little bit against those very specific markers. I tend to tell people, well, as high as possible without accidentally under investing in your business. Right. So that's something we have to watch out for too, which we could talk about. But ultimately I want to see people have as high of profit margins as possible. And, and I think that one thing for a lot of people, especially in, you know, coaches, digital course businesses, things like that, they have really high profit margins because they don't have maybe support staff. Right. They don't have a lot of cost involved except for their time. And I think that that doesn't, your time doesn't show up on your profit and loss typically. Right. It's not going to be something that you're going to see there, but it still has a value. And so when you're figuring out those profit margins, you can't forget that your time is worth money. And so we have to be thinking about not just what are our profit margins from a dollars and cents perspective, but when I consider the time that I'm investing into this, is it worthwhile? Right. Am I making what I need to? If I break this down on like an hourly basis, is this bringing me in enough income? And in the beginning it's fine for, you know, it might be, you might be kind of in that zone in the very beginning where there's a lot of work for not a lot of return yet. And that's part of that investment. You're investing with your time, but eventually you should see that come back to you. Right. So it's just really important to have that viewpoint when we're looking at our numbers and our finances.
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B
Okay, so back to my question that I was going to ask before. That is what's a simple way someone can figure out where their profit is really coming from and then which offer might be secretly draining them? And I love this question because I've worked with a lot of women that are making about 500k and they want to get to that million dollar mark. They're Called my Milli Club members. And some of them realized in the Millie club, wait a second. This one product is so much work and not making me nearly as much profit as I thought it was.
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A
So.
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So when you start really diving into your numbers, Jamie, what I love what you do is that you can make your business simpler if you understand your numbers better for sure, right?
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A
Absolutely.
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B
And so what's a simple way someone can figure out where their profit is really coming from? And again, what might be draining that profit?
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A
Yeah. And one of the most popular things that I see happening in especially a business that has multiple offers. Right. Is you might assume that whatever offer is making you the most revenue is the most profitable. Right. And that is often not the case because we have to think about the energy and time involved. And so this happens a lot. Let's say, you know, you might have a one to one business where a lot of your revenue is coming from this one to one business. But then you also have, say, digital courses or something like that, and maybe less revenue is coming from it. But when you actually work out the amount of time, time you're spending on each of those different channels in your business and tracking them separately, you might see, oh, actually I'm making a lot more per hour on this offer over here. So it's really about looking at each and every offer. And I would just start by, you know, writing down how much do I make off of each sale of each offer and how much time does it take me to deliver that. Right. Or if it's something like a digital course, divide that out between all your sales and kind of understand how much you're making on an hourly basis. And. And I think sometimes people realize, oh my goodness, where a lot of my revenue is coming from one place, it's actually yielding me less when I look at the return on my time. And there comes a point in business, I think, in the beginning of business where we're really, we have more time than money. Typically not everyone, but typically. Right. And so we are putting that time in. That's our investment. But eventually. And talking about your Milli Club is a great example of this. Right. They're probably at the place where their time is more expensive than their money. Their time is now worth more than their money. And so they have to really redefine how they're thinking about that and really spend their time strategically because it is costing them if they don't.
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B
Jamie, I love that you really focus on time. You're a busy mom, you've got two kids you're running around, you know, supporting them and all the things that they do. And you're running a business. You're a true entrepreneur. So the fact that you don't just focus on the dollars, but also the time, it's so valuable. And I love the lens that you look for so kind of along that path for the business owners who are making sales but not seeing the income or the freedom that maybe she expected, she doesn't have the time she thought she would. Where should she look first? And can you walk us through the key levers that you found that that help uncover hidden profit? I love when you talk about hidden profit. What are those levers that help uncover it?
- [15:30]
A
Yeah, I think this is where a lot of people just kind of put up their hands and like, I don't know, I'm working so hard and I'm not getting the results that I want. And I think we forget that our numbers are more than just for taxes and for bookkeeping and all the things we have to do. There's a lot of keys that we can find, find in our numbers. And it doesn't take becoming a CPA in order to really start to decipher that. And so that's what I tell people is your numbers are data, right? They are going to help you and little tweaks in certain things. And that's what I call the profit levers. You can pull different levers and they can help trigger additional profit. I think sometimes we think about, you know, okay, if I want to make a change in my bottom line, I just need to sell more. That's literally. And that is a profit leverage volume, It's a profit lever. Selling more will, you know, ultimately make you more profit. But if you aren't as profitable as you could be on each and every sale you're making, then chasing sales is just that recipe for burnout. Right. And if we're using our numbers to actually go in and look holistically at our business and make little tweaks here and there that make every sale a little bit more profitable, then when we go and chase those sales, we, we're going to see a much bigger impact to our bottom line. And so when I talk about the profit levers, there are eight of them. I won't talk about all of them here today. But ultimately it's little tweaks that you can make in the equation that is your profit. And some people think it's just, okay, your profit is revenue minus expenses. So aren't the only levers increase revenue and decrease expenses. Those are the main ones. But there's a lot of smaller things in there that you can do. So increasing revenue isn't just increasing sales. It might be looking at your price, which is another profit lever, right? It's number of sales times the price you're charging. That is what determines your revenue. So that's one place to look. That's often a big place to look. And a lot of times you might know in your heart of hearts that you're not priced properly. Especially if you feel any kind of angst around pricing. If you feel like you are getting taken advantage of or you feel any kind of way about your pricing, you know, it might be time to take a look at that. But then there are other things like average transaction value. You can also increase your average transaction value. Amy, you are such a good example of this. I point to you all the time because you have a good way of figuring out what else could people need that would complement the thing they're already buying. We call them upsells or, you know, whatever it is. But ultimately it's thinking about this person already has, you know, raised their hand and said, I need this thing and I'm going to buy it. And then having something else that isn't pressure filled but is like, hey, you might also be interested in that. That's what grocery stores do. When you walk down the aisle and you see, you know, oh, there's some gum here, let me grab that too. That would be great. Or let me grab this magazine. Or your kid makes you buy a king size Reese's, right? It's smart they do that because not everybody is going to do that. But each person that does it, it increases the average transaction value without you having to get a single additional sale. So those little tweaks are different ways to increase just the revenue part of the equation in lots of creative ways. So when you let yourself get a little creative with it, it can actually be fun to figure out, okay, how can I actually maximize my revenue without just having to sell more, sell more, sell more.
- [19:02]
B
You know, I was thinking when you were talking about another way that we have been able to do this in terms of someone's already buying from us and we present a different opportunity. So in my boot camp, we have general admission, it's 47, but while you're enrolling, you've actually already enrolled. And then we say, hey, by the way, do you want to become a VIP member? We call them vipers. Do you want to become a viper in the program where you get 6.6Live Q& A's with me while we go through the bootcamp so you can go deeper with me at an additional cost. And so many people take us up on this because the opportunity is great for them, but for me, as a business owner, they're already engaged. So that next level is so much easier than what you said, trying to find new customers. So I love that you brought up these different levers. I know in your book, which we'll talk about at the end, you're going to go through many more levers which could really unlock so, so much profit. But coming back to those hidden profits. So I'd love to hear from you about a time that you found hidden profits in your own business. Maybe it was like a small tweak that made a big difference. Tell me about that.
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A
So for my business, actually, I know we just talked about different ways to increase revenue, but my. What I found most helpful for me was actually going through the cost levers. So we have a direct cost and an indirect cost lever. So those are basically levers to help you control your costs. And most of the time, we think of the. The cost lever that we need to be reducing costs. Right. It's time to cut everything. You know, all the expenses. That's what your accountant will typically tell you to do. Oh, you got to reduce expenses. But actually, I found in my case, when I really looked into it, I was running really lean. And actually, I was running probably too lean for a long time.
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B
Okay, tell me more about that. What did that look like?
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A
Yeah, I was hesitant to invest in a team to help me. Right. I was doing so much on my own again, valuing my money over my time, which is crazy. Cause there's only so much time that I have in life. So I just was doing everything myself. And I was afraid to invest that money because what if I didn't get a return on it? And what I was really doing, though, was creating. Yes, I was maximizing profit today, but at what cost? That was basically at tomorrow's profit or next year's profit. And this year is going to be our best year yet. I've also had the biggest team that I've ever had.
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B
Wow.
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A
But we're also going to be incredibly profitable. So it was a great shift to say I need to actually focus on putting my money to work in my business. That was my biggest profit leverage. Where can I put my money to work for me so I don't have to work as hard? So not only was this the best year in our business, I've also worked less than I've worked any year in business. So that has helped me, I think, forever. I still have had the working more equals more money equation in my head. That's probably from the corporate world. Right? Like, that's what's ingrained to us. And what I've found, actually is quite the opposite, that when I kind of take a step back, I focus more on the business. I have the people in place who can help me do the things even better than I could do them. And I commit to actually being able to enjoy a little bit of the freedom I've created for myself. All of a sudden, instead of that causing a decline in my profit, it increased my profit, which just felt totally crazy.
- [22:24]
B
Oh, my gosh. I love that you said that. Some of, you know, I mentioned my Milli members. Some of them came into the Millie club with, like, a profit margin of 70%. I said, okay, so that feels a little bit too high.
- [22:37]
A
And.
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B
And I bet if you spent more, invested more in your business, you could work less, like you said, but also start making more money. And so, yeah, I love that you brought that up. So very important.
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A
And we absolutely get stuck in that place. Right. Because there's a time and a place in business where we're running lean. And I'm all about growing a business responsibly. Don't get into debt if you don't have to. Right. I'm all about that, But I think that we start that way, and it's hard to actually make that shift. Shift when we need to. And that's exactly the time frame when you're in that, you know, half a million, trying to get a million, trying to really grow and scale. You have to let go of the things that actually worked for you. It feels strange, but you have to let go of it a little bit and kind of level up in order to reach that next level. And that's a lesson I've learned in real time. So that's been really neat to see.
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B
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A
Yeah. Well, as a DCA Class of 2019 alum, I know you haven't raised your prices.
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B
That is so funny. Yes, you're right.
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A
You have. And I've been waiting for you to finally do it because there is so much value in there. But I think it's one of those things where we'll avoid it as long as we can, especially in something like digital courses, because it is harder to price something like that. Right. There isn't necessarily like a one for one relationship where you can just take. Take a markup percentage on the cost as there is in other places. And so that is something that it can be a little bit, it does feel a little bit more experimental in terms of, you know, what we need to do in order to find the right price. So we might have to work through some of that. And it is a little bit more trial and error as well in a business like a digital course when there isn't specific, specifically a formula. Right. So I talk a lot about if you do have cost, even if it's your own time, right. On a one to one basis or something like that, you want to make sure that you're charging your time plus a nice hefty markup on top of that. You are the business owner here. You need to make sure that you are doing that. Because one of the things that people who are, let's say one on one service providers, the problem they can get into is they want to hire but they feel like they can't because they can't afford to hire someone. And if you feel like you can't afford to hire someone to help you, you're not charging enough. Right. We need to base that, include that in when we're setting our prices, even when it's just us, because otherwise it's not going to be scalable. And then we're going to run up against this internal feeling of how do I increase my price that much in order to be able to pay somebody to do this work for me. And instead of raising prices, you're going to fall back on just doing it all yourself and continuing to do it all yourself forever and ever and ever and ever. Amen. And we do not want to get into that. Right? We do not want to get into that. So I typically, you know, there is a lot wrapped up in pricing, but you need to run a sustainable business that is paying you well so, so that you will continue to be here. I think sometimes people think, oh, you know, what about my customers and my clients? Well, you're not going to be able to have any customers or clients if you're not running a business with sustainable profit margins that ensure you're going to be here a year from now. So make sure it's not a bad thing. I think there's a lot of money mindset stuff that we, we worry about or we worry about what people are going to think. People are making the decisions that are best for them. And we don't know what's going to happen when we raise our prices. In fact, we may and probably will have less people buying, but we still, we may be making more profit. And if you can make More profit, working less. Isn't that the dream? Right. Why are we so worried about the number of sales we're making and not the amount of profit that we're making?
- [28:51]
B
I love this conversation. I hope that some aha moments are happening with my listeners. Like, wait a second. I need to look at that a different way. I wasn't thinking of it that way. So kind of along that same vein, you've seen behind the curtain of thousands of small businesses. So tell me some of the most surprising places that you've seen profit hiding. Like something even experienced entrepreneurs might have totally missed.
- [29:17]
A
Oh, yeah. It does often come down to, you know, when you're looking on a product or service basis. So you may have. You may be profitable overall, but a lot of businesses aren't doing that deep dive into each product or service to see how profitable each of them is. So you may have one that you're running at like 60% profit margins and one that's actually costing you money, but net, net you're at 40%. So you keep going, but every time you sell that one thing, you're actually losing money. I've seen this as a virtual cfo. I worked with a company that was actually doing this. Their bestseller was losing them money, and they had no idea. And that was really hard for them to get past. And there was a lot of feelings around it and worry that they couldn't increase their prices. But I said, they can't afford not to because you're actually spending more than you're making on this. And it can get really muddy if you're not looking at it at that granular of a level, especially if you have multiple different offers. And so you want to make sure that you're doing that. We actually divided our business into multiple different divisions this year just because we wanted to be able to see the numbers a little bit more cleanly. How much is each division bringing in from revenue perspective, which we knew that, but we hadn't gone through the process of trying to allocate out those costs and really understand how profitable each one was. And when we did that, it just really opened our eyes to the possibilities of. Of what we could do. And so I highly recommend you don't have to have a fancy software for this. You can do it on a spreadsheet, but just jumping in and trying to get as close as you can doesn't have to be perfect to be useful. Tell people that all the time. They're worried about getting it right down to the penny. I'm not your Tax accountant. I don't care about that. This is for you to make decisions in your business, but really trying to look at that and make a decision on what is the most worthwhile. And then again, it may be that you keep everything and you maybe don't change your pricing, but it helps you realize, okay, these are the products or services that are actually making me money. That's one of our other levers, is the mix lever. Right. The mixture of products and services you sell and how do you really try to sell that one? Put your effort and your energy into selling that product or service versus maybe some of the others. Doesn't mean you have to get rid of them, but it just helps us determine where our energy is going to be most best used.
- [31:44]
B
So I know this is layered. This question I'm going to ask is like very detailed, so you don't have to get into all the details. But I know some of my listeners are like, wait a second, Jamie. How do I know if I'm losing money with an offer? So what do they do about that?
- [31:59]
A
Yeah, so I think that that is where you first have to start by quantifying your costs. How much are your costs to create this offer, to deliver it, making sure you're including team time. You can estimate your time as well. So what I tell people to do is if you're spending, if you're a lot of, you know, the muscle behind your business, where you're delivering the offer, not necessarily all the other things that you're doing in your business to run your business, but the actual creation, delivery of the offer itself. If you were to hire someone, doesn't mean that you ever would. But if you were to hire someone to take on those duties, how much would you pay them? And then I want you to include that in the calculation. Those are your direct costs. So you want to make sure that you're capturing all of that and then comparing it to what am I charging and then how much am I making? At the end of the day, I think that piece of labor, we're just missing it and it makes us feel like we're profitable. But at the end of the day, we. We're actually truly losing money. Especially if we wanted to grow in scale, we wouldn't be able to because we couldn't hire someone to do that work. We would actually physically lose money in that case. So that's where I recommend people really start with that.
- [33:10]
B
I love that what you're saying, something about it doesn't have to be perfect. What did you Say it doesn't have.
- [33:15]
A
To be perfect to be useful. I love that. Yeah, that's one of my phrases that I use all the time. Because a lot of people really avoid their numbers because they're worried they don't know enough about them or they don't understand them enough or they're gonna do something wr. And there are a million different ways to look at your numbers, to analyze them. There's not just one way that works for everyone. It's about what's going to be helpful for you in making decisions about your business. And actually, estimates are your friends. Assumptions are your friends. You don't know all the answers. You're not going to. So if you're trying to look and do a forecast for next year, guess what? You're going to be wrong. You're going to be wrong. None of you are going to be exactly right. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It doesn't have to be perfect to be useful. Just do the thing. Get as close as you reasonably can. But there is a point where it actually is, you know, not actually productive to be putting extra time trying to get as granular as possible. It's really about the big picture. And I want more. What that's what I call basically being the CFO of your own business. Right. If you don't have a CFO on staff, it's you. And a lot of people don't want. Want to claim that because they're like, oh, I don't love the number side, but you're the one making those decisions on pricing, on what you're spending in your business. Those are the things the CFO does. So it really is defaulting to you. And even if you do have a CFO in your business, I would argue the buck stops with you. You're still the decision maker. You don't want to outsource decision making in your own business. You know, you need to be aware of the big picture so it doesn't have. You don't have to get into the bookkeeping. I'm a big fan of people outsourcing all the, you know, completely clients and the little, you know, things like that. But the big picture, how much money are you bringing in? How much money are you spending? How profitable are each of your offerings? That's what being a CFO really is.
- [35:03]
B
Truly. I agree 100%. Okay, so let's talk about tax planning. I know not the most sexiest topic, but you do make it feel doable. So what's one simple shift someone could make this month that would help them keep more of the money that they're already earning. Because we can't talk about money without talking about taxes.
- [35:25]
A
Yes. So taxes are an interesting thing because I am a CPA and I love to talk about tax strategy, but I still think that profitability is the most important thing. So the thing I always caution people not to do is overspend things like that just for the deductions. Right? It's great. Make sure you're actually getting all the deductions that are due to you, but don't use it as a license to spend on things that aren't going to have a return on investment. So that's the main thing. But I think that there are a ton of people will look and scour the world for these really obscure tax strategies. I'll be honest, a lot of those tax strategies are more available the more income you make. So millionaires, billionaires especially, have a million different ways that they can save on taxes. As a true small business owner, there are still a handful of more tried and true ways. But it's not about finding those little loopholes to save money. And anybody who tells you there's some loophole that's going to save you all this money is just trying to sell you something. Probably right? So I'm a big fan of if we are paying attention to our taxes, if we are saving for them appropriately, we will be less likely to make decisions that don't serve us. So right now it's October. We do you know, have you paid in enough to your taxes? Are you going to owe at the end of the year? This is a great time to be figuring that out. Sit down with your accountant, look at how much you've made this year. How much have you paid in through either withholding or through estimated taxes? However you pay them, how much have you set aside? Make sure you're in good shape because you don't want to get to April and all of a sudden have this big tax bill. And there are a lot of things you can do between now and the end of the year if it's not adding up. So, for example, one of the biggest things is just taking advantage of retirement accounts that help you, you know, get a tax break today for amounts that you're putting into your retirement accounts. Those are a great way to do it. That's a tried and true way. Anybody can do that. You don't have to be a billionaire to have a SEP IRA that you can actually be getting a benefit from. So Those are the types of things where you're not actually spending that money. You get to keep the money. You're just, you have to put it into a retirement account. You can't access it anytime soon, but that at least allows you to keep it versus some of the strategies that really require you to kind of burn through money in order to reduce your taxes, which is never a great idea.
- [37:46]
B
No, for sure, for sure. You know, I've known you for a really long time and one thing I know about you is you are a values driven woman, for sure. And especially in how you teach money in, in general. So how do you help people reconnect with why profit matters? Especially those who feel like just money is just a means to an end. Like, what do you say about that?
- [38:11]
A
Yeah, this is something I feel really strongly about because I do think, I do think that it can prevent us if we're. A lot of times, especially women in business will say things like, oh, I'm just not motivated, my money. Okay, what motivates you? Tap into what motivates you? What do you want in life? My guess is that money can help you get there. I'm not saying it's the end all, be all. But my guess is that if you want to live a more free life, spend more time with the people you care about, travel the world, all of those things are helped when you have money. And again, it doesn't mean that it's everything, but I think that that is something that's easier to connect to. It's really about kind of going back to that. Why? Why do you want to do this? To be, begin with and something deeper than just I need to pay my bills. Right. I'm doing this to pay my bills. Because you're not going to strive in that case, you're not going to really live up to what you could be and what you could do. So really connecting with what matters to you and maybe that's also giving. I think a lot of people, again have this negative view of money, that money corrupts. But think about the amount of people. I mean people talk about money doesn't buy happiness. Well, if you're a person that doesn't know where your next meal is coming from, it actually does, let's be honest. And if we can help others that may be in situations that money makes a really big difference, it may not make a huge difference to you, but there are people out there that need your help. There are organizations out there that need your help. It can make a huge difference. So if that helps you then. Then I definitely recommend having that charitable piece of your business have a percentage that goes off the top towards the things that you care about. It will give you so much more of a connection to what you're doing, and it will help propel you forward, and it'll get you through those really hard times. I'll fight people. I'll die on this hill. That money can do so many amazing things. It doesn't make us a better person because we, quote, unquote, don't care about money.
- [40:16]
B
Oh, yeah, you're talking to the right woman for that one. I totally agree. Okay, so tell me this. We've covered a lot of topics, and if a listener walked away from this episode and only remembered one thing about finding more profit in their business, what do you hope it is?
- [40:34]
A
So I would say I want people to realize they're more in control than they think. We worry about what's going on in the economy. I mean, I see it all the time. There are certain things that are always going to be outside of our control. But these profit levers, really, the reason I teach them is to illustrate that you're the control room operator. You can go in and make a ton of different decisions that are going to impact your bottom line. And they don't have to be huge. It doesn't have to be massive overhauls. Small tweaks can really add up to big differences. That's the amazing thing about numbers. Like, if you are a person that plays around in numbers, you'll realize little 2% tweaks on each of these different levers all of a sudden somehow add up to sometimes more than double oper doubling. Your operating profit numbers are amazing that way. So it's really key that you know you have that control and you need to claim it. Though if your business feels and your finances feel like they're happening to you, that's not the control. You need to step into that control room and say, okay, I'm going to intentionally make some decisions. And even if they're not the exact right decisions, Right. First of all, there is no exact right decision. There's not just one. There are a million different paths you could take. So it's okay to experiment. But just by the act of saying, I am taking ownership of this, I can make these. These shifts myself, and I can do this. It's going to make all the difference, and it's going to encourage you to do it more and more as you see the fruits of that labor.
- [41:57]
B
Absolutely. So I know you go even Deeper into all of this in your new book. So can you tell us a little bit about this new book and why you felt called to write it? And right before we started recording, you said, I just got to open up the book. So open up the box with all the books. So show everyone the book. So here we go. This is a very big deal. Hidden Profit. I'm so excited for you, Jamie. I know you've worked really hard on this, so what can people expect? Why should they pick it up?
- [42:24]
A
Tell us a little. Yeah, so Hidden Profit has been something I wanted to write for a long time because I'm really passionate about financial literacy and profit strategy for small business owners. And there really aren't that many books specifically helping you navigate business finances. There are lots of books that are kind of these big picture ideas for businesses. They're great. But I wanted something super practical. You and I are the same. We love step by step and practical. I wanted people to be able to implement and see the results right away. And so that's really what this was. And there are not a lot of voices in this space. There are even less voices of women in the space of money and finances. So that's another reason that it felt really important to me to write this book and have my voice heard. Because the problems that women have are different. We are dealing with different things oftentimes. And so I wanted that perspective to be included. And it really is a heart centered profit book. It's a business finance book, but it truly is written from the heart, with compassion, with understanding. Because I think that that's really where we connect and it's to help people connect with why they want to grow this business, why they want to grow this profit. And then using the tools that I talk about in the book to find your hidden profit and also to then use that to create the life that you really want and the impact you really want. And that's not something you get again in a lot of books. So you're going to learn everything from like how do I read a P and L to how do I create the dream life for myself and my family that I really want. So it spans the whole gamut. And so I'm really just excited about this. I'm also thankful because you, the fabulous Amy Porterfield, wrote the foreword for this book. So if there wasn't enough reason for people to pick it up, that's another one which I so appreciated. I'm honored and I'm just excited to get it out there.
- [44:16]
B
I'm so excited for you to get this book out there. It is absolutely needed. The women that listen to this podcast, I know they want to be more literate with their finances and their money and figure this out. And you know it well. You are an entrepreneur. You do get in the trenches with this, and now you're teaching other women how to do the same. So, Jamie, this book is needed. I'm so excited for you. Where do they go to to grab the book?
- [44:40]
A
Just Jamie trill.com hidden profit or you can just go anywhere that you order your books. It's available on Amazon and target and bookshop.org wherever you want to support. Hopefully it'll be in your local bookstores as well. Go check it out and if it's not there, go request it. Yes, there you go. And then definitely make sure to go though to jamietrello.com hidden profit because of course, we have some bonuses for you because I learned from the best. Perfect.
- [45:06]
B
And that's T R U L L.
- [45:08]
A
For any of you. Like.
- [45:10]
B
Yes. So, Jamie, thank you so much for being on the show, and I really appreciate your passion around revenue and profit and really finding that hidden profit in everybody's businesses. So thanks so much for being here.
- [45:23]
A
Thank you so much for having me, Amy.