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Welcome back to the Business with Beers podcast. Your daily dose of what it takes to build an eight figure business. So happy Monday. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I am a little under the weather, but the show must go on. So my shops just finished another record setting month. $4.792 million of revenue, almost hit 5 million. That's the next big milestone to crack. I think we're going to hit it in June or July. We were up over 15% versus last year. So continued to have major growth, double digits every month. When I go through all of the sales numbers, there's something that really surprises me. One of my shops in north New Jersey did $160,000 in revenue. Now it was a record month. It broke the previous best month that was set just two months ago of $140,000. So $20,000 more. But what really impressed me or continues to shock me was Rewind January 2025, that shop only did 49,000 for the entire month. We lost money. We probably lost $15,000 of like profit, like negative that we had to pay from another store's profit just to, just to make it all work. Right. And we were, we were so close. We were literally months away from shutting the shop down. Our lease was up in May of 2025. So January we do 49, we lose money. That store has been always one of my worst. I bought it in 2021 as part of like a package deal. And it just, it literally over four years we ran the numbers, it made zero profit. So From July of 21 to when I bought it until like January, like the net profit, the entire store was essentially zero. And we did put a lot of money back into the store. I had to, we had to replace like all the lifts and the heating system and you know, we did a bunch of work but it just still couldn't make money. We had manager after manager and it's one of the furthest stores too. And sometimes the stores we say like the edge of the empire, if they don't have really strong teams, generally they get, you know, less oversight and you know, they tend to take shortcuts and it just can compound into to bad results. And so we're months away. And so we made another change and that lit a spark. We got the right guy in the store and immediately we saw impact. The next, literally the next month, you know, I don't have it in front of me but I, you know, I think we did 100,000 and then 110 and then 190 and then 120. And just like, it just started to show promise. We started to make money there. And now it's one of my most profitable stores. And it's just funny and like, I've learned this and relearned this many, many times over the decade now that I've been an owner, which are for us, there are no bad locations. There are just bad leaders. And bad leadership is cancerous. If you have a bad person leading the ship, everything that falls down from them isn't going to work. The techs don't want to work. It's like a bad environment. The customers don't have a good experience. You know, the paperwork doesn't get done right. And then the office is all like, annoyed and it's causing problems there. And it's just like, you know, there's that old, like, power rule where 80% of your headaches probably come from 20% of, of, you know, your. In my case, it's the stores. But. But then it's like you make a change, like getting a new. A new leader and boom, all of a sudden it's. It's crushing it. And so again, I didn't know store, I did 175,000 in May. Not the record month for them, but. But still very strong. But looking back in March of 25, so just what's that? 14 months ago it did like 80,000. So we more than doubled the revenue. And again, same store, new manager, new energy, and you get the results. It also works in reverse. I mean, I had another store doing 140, 150,000 every single month. Unfortunately, we lost that manager. Now it's like doing 90 to 100. And, you know, we're working to get the right guy back in there. It is what I love about this business. And you know, honestly, my biggest frustration, which is our success is 100% determined by the people that we have in the store, not the location itself. That's reversed. Like in some other businesses, you get into a fast food business, you buy into a Popeyes or something Taco Bell, you know it. Not to say that people don't matter, but like, as long as the food comes out consistent, the place is clean. Like, it's. It's to people's expectations or maybe just not below their minimum expectation, then it's fine and they can perform. And yeah, real estate really matters. Like, pick a good spot that has good visibility and good traffic and demographics and like, you know, the people can come and go, but as long as you're running the system right, that's what matters. But in mine, I could have the best freaking piece of real estate in the world. And if I have a bunch of duds in there, it ain't gonna work. So just, it just reminds me again and again, that's why we've put so much emphasis and focus on our systems around hiring the right people, retaining the best building leaders from within and all that just like compounds into these results. So anyway, it's a good reminder. The other thing that's funny is like running a multi unit business is like spinning plates. So imagine you have like a plate and there's like a stick. And you know, you're like, you're like spinning it and you get it going, you get it moving fast, right? And then another one wobbles, you're like oh no. And you like over there and you have to like fix it and correct it. And then another one, you took your eye off it, it crashes to the ground, it breaks apart and you're like oh shit. And so now you get that one going again. It's just like, okay, it's still a little wobbly, but now your best one is slowing down. And that the one that crashed? Oh yeah, that one's not one of your best again. And so like it's just this up and down and up and down and individually it feels like a roller coaster. And it's like, it's just, it's, it's really hard. I mean I know some guys with you know, single single stores that absolutely crush it some months. But then other months, like, man, you get that, you get those down months and it really, really hurts. And so we feel that at an individual store level, but, and I haven't run the numbers lately, but I want to say it was something like a, on an individual store basis, we had about a 25% variance in week to week sales. So in any given week they could be 25% up or 25% down from like their average number. But when we grouped stores in the markets so we have like five markets, you could say like with, with district managers, it cut it in half. It went to like a 12% variance of the market revenue week to week. And then when you looked at the company, it was like, I'm say it was again half, it was like a 6% plus or minus each week. And you know, it just goes to show that like the bigger the company gets, the smoother the overall sales are for us. I mean luckily or intentionally really that smooth climb has been up into the right. But for smaller operators Those down months have way, way more impact on their personal bottom line. For example, like, four of my shops were down 30% last month versus the previous year. Right? So 30% down. So again, they're not all winners spinning plates. But like, if I only had five stores and four of them were down that much, it would have crushed me, right? I would have been pulling money out of savings or putting money into the business just to make it because they were down so much. And honestly, like, this is how I've been able to acquire multiple locations over the last couple years is sometimes it's just sitting and waiting and eventually people get tired. Eventually they have a couple bad months in a row, somebody quits and they're like, man, I want out. Right? And they're ready to sell and guess who's ready to buy? Like, even last week we went and looked at a number of acquisitions. I'm going to talk about more in detail this week. But I mean, all the time, like we're saying, all right, let's put some offers out there, let's like make some seeds. We know that like the sellers probably aren't going to take what we have to offer initially, but we plant the seeds and then we circle back, you know, when it starts to get slower and we just, we just build that relationship. And then over time, yeah, when they're ready to roll, guess who's going to be ready to buy. So that is what I've done for years and years. So what I recommend if you're looking to do a similar acquisition roll up strategy, is build these relationships, build your systems so then when you have an acquisition opportunity in front of you, you are like ready to go. All right, but even for me, it wasn't like that. Like this advice, I made this podcast or I'm redoing this podcast for myself 10 years ago when I was just getting started. And even then, like when I went from two to three to four, like, even at every one of those, I felt like, ah, is this the right move? More locations is going to mean more stress and that, like, you know, more chaos. And it did for a period of time until I figured out the systems that didn't make it chaotic. Right? And that's my goal in sharing more and more content. You know, every day here is to help you identify and then install those systems. And you know, the whole, I'm not trying to brag, right? I'm not talking about these record months and weeks and all stuff to talk about how awesome I am. I'm really doing it to make a point, which is that it also wasn't by accident. Right. It's a direct result of the systems that I live and I breathe and that we've worked on for years and years and years to perfect. And it's proof that the things that I talk about work. There's so many people online who give all this advice or tell you what to do and it's like none of them have built a real business. Right? We are literally done it and now I'm documenting it and the next part is like I want to help as many people as I can get the same results because it's. The world is abundant. There is as much, you know, rewards and money and opportunity out there for anybody that's willing to do the work and go and get it. And so, you know, I'm going to be sharing as much as I can in terms of information here on the podcast, on YouTube, on my newsletter. I'm just getting into substack if you want to come and hang out with me over there. There's a number of other owners out there who would prefer more direct insights from me and like direct coaching on what they specifically need to do because information's, you know, a good part of it. But what really matters is implementation. How do we take the concepts that I'm talking about and actually install them when it comes to hiring, when it comes to retention systems and building stronger margins and sales process and acquisition strategies and all that. So in June, here's what I'm going to do. It's a little bit different. I'm going to open up 10 spots in my new coaching program for owners who are ready to build the foundation of an eight figure business. And so what I'm looking for are, I mean it's people who are really serious to be totally honest. You know, you got to be coachable, you got to be able to move fast and take action to implement the plug and play systems that I, that I want to give you. You got to either own a franchise or being a small business owner and some sort of like service based business. I'm not really working with like, I don't know, agencies or whatever online businesses. It's got to be like in the trades or service businesses and gotta be at least a million dollars in revenue or $10,000 a month in cash flow. You know, it's not cheap. You know, I'm only working with a few people and so it's gonna be ones that got some skin in the game and willing to do whatever it takes. And man, I know that these things work to help build eight figure businesses. So if you're interested and want to learn more about that, click Send me a text in the bottom of this podcast description, Name, phone number, your a note about you your business and I'll send you back some more information on that. You can decide if it's a good fit or not and we can get go from there. So anyway, looking forward to doing that. And I am flying to Orlando Monday afternoon with my wife and kids. It's tomorrow. I'm recording this here on Sunday and we're going to hit up Animal Kingdom for I think it's two days Cocoa beach to go see the Space center for a couple days, go to the beach there and returning Friday. So should be a good short trip with the family and I'm looking forward to sunny Florida. So cheers.