P is for Profit

As an entrepreneur, you’re focused on making money and growing your business. But, says attorney and best-selling author Garrett Sutton, you can’t forget to protect your money at the same time. 

He shares asset protection strategies in plain English – no legalese – that you can use to make you don’t lose unnecessarily profits you should be taking home… or even your personal assets.

It all starts at the beginning, when you first structure your business. Garrett talks about the pros and cons of sole proprietorships, LLCs, and corporations. And that’s just the start of our conversation. 

We also cover…

• The biggest legal mistakes startup business owners make – and how to avoid them
   
• Ways to avoid personal liability and seizure of personal assets like bank accounts and home equity
   
• How business owners often unknowingly sabotage their asset protection strategies
   
• The business structure that gives you the best asset protection – and tax benefits

• And more

On this week’s episode of P is for Profit, we speak with Chris Hervochon, a CPA and the owner of Better Way CPA, which provides outsourced accounting and tax preparation services. This episode is all about cash flow and how to improve the cash that your business generates.

“At the end of the day, your business has to generate cash because you can't pay for your mortgage in anything but cash. You can't pay for the grocery bill in anything but cash. You can't pay your employees in anything but cash. It's got to turn into cash, and understanding specific components of your cash flow statement and where you need to be focused is super important. You need to understand it, forecast it, and model it. That's really the jumping-off point that I see a lot of small business owners struggle with,” says Chris.

We chat about common struggles faced by business owners when it comes to their cash flow, as well as:

• Understanding your cash flow statement

• What level of debt is healthy for your business

• The importance of cash reserves

• Bookkeeping best-practices

• His book, Scaling the Data Driven Marketing Agency

• And more

John Corcoran is a lawyer turned podcaster and podcast guru who found that his broadcasts served as a great source for clients, referrals, strategic partnerships, and other benefits in his career and life.

Now, with his agency Rise 25, John teaches B2B businesses how to use a podcast as a marketing tool that brings in more clients, referral partners, and strategic partners.

John talks not only about the technical details but also shares some surprising insights for making this medium work at bringing in more, better-quality leads. We get into detail on that, including…

• Who to invite as a guest – and how to get them on your show

• The psychology behind podcast-related referrals

• The easy way to start your podcast

• Why the size of your audience doesn’t matter

• And more

In this week’s episode of P is for Profit, we chat with leadership expert and executive coach, John Murphy. John’s focus as a coach is to help improve the performance of teams— thus improving the ROI of one of the largest expenses that many businesses have… which is payroll.

“If teams aren’t working the right way, it doesn’t matter how good your strategy is,” says John about the importance of evaluating team performance. 

We’ll talk about how to get the most from your team, as well as…

• The steps you need to take in order to work together more effectively

• The 3-step approach to evaluating team performance

• How to apply John’s strategies to your own team

• Where most teams are lacking (and how to fix it)

• And more

Many digital marketing agencies are “stuck” in specific channels they provide for clients, says Darwin Liu, founder of X Agency. On top of that, they only look at results from that channel. 

Darwin and his team take a different approach. They measure success by looking at revenue. And they’re what he calls “channel agnostic,” which means they use whatever marketing channels are right for the business. Plus, they strive to get results for as little cost as possible. 

In one case, they were able to boost a client’s revenue from $47 million to $90 million in a year, yet only increased marketing spending by 20%.

We take a close look at how they were able to do it and also discuss…

• The 20-point checklist for a highly converting website

• Why the best marketing in the world won’t bring more revenue if you don’t have this
   
• How to take an industry-specific approach to your marketing campaigns

• What’s on the horizon in digital marketing for the rest of 2020 and beyond

• And more

On this week’s episode of P is for Profit, we speak with sales expert, Connie Whitman. Connie is the CEO of Whitman and Associates, and is known for her high-energy, passionate, and enthusiastic approach to teaching and coaching. She aims to help business owners and sales teams build powerhouse organizations to achieve their most outrageous goals.

“You could be a great athlete, but that doesn't mean you should be coaching your team. One thing that I see with business owners is they're really good at creating their product or service, the innovation of it, but maybe sometimes they shouldn't be selling it; they get into the weeds too much. They talk about the details of whatever the product or service can do, but it's not about the product, or you and your business, it's always about the client,” says Connie.

We chat about Connie’s entrepreneurial journey, as well as:

• Ensuring that your sales team is not only capable but also willing to sell

• Her book, ESP - Easy Sales Process

• Her seven steps to sales success

• Building an effective referral network with integrity 

• And more

Dan Moore, CEO and co-founder of Vaporware, and his team help turn their clients’ ideas into reality with custom software solutions. They might automate a manual process or help the client provide better service to their customers… or even a completely new service.

The result: increased revenues, reduced costs, and sometimes even the re-invention of the way a company does business.  

In this interview, Dan shares some real-world case studies involving software they developed for healthcare companies, corporate recruiters, and more. Dan also shares some of the biggest myths their potential clients have about software, first and foremost, that it has to be big and expensive. 

Dan explains why that’s definitely not the case. We also talk about…

• Why they do much more than “develop” software

• The pivotal role the client plays in creating game-changing solutions for their own business

• How they make sure “failures” pay for themselves

• The importance of looking to the long-term goals during the development process 

• And more

In his consulting business, StructureM, Will Watrous focuses on helping home improvement contractors improve their marketing. But the tools and techniques he shares can improve the profitability of any business.

With consumers being bombarded with marketing online and offline from the moment they wake up, Will says companies must find a way to cut through the clutter to survive. 

He says one of the best ways to do that is create marketing messages that repel more people than they attract. 

We unpack exactly how that’s beneficial, and also get into…

• The importance of measuring marketing ROI and how it propels growth

• The 6 marketing paths you can take – and how to choose the one right for you

• How to identify your ideal client – it might not be who you think it is
   
• Why you must create a foundational strategy for your marketing efforts

• And more

On this week’s P is for Profit, we’re joined by special guest Jonathan Keyser, the Founder and Thought Leader behind Keyser, one of the fastest-growing commercial real estate firms of its kind in the country, serving thousands of companies globally across a wide range of industries. Jonathan is also the best-selling author of You Don’t Have to Be Ruthless to Win and was recently named the Commercial Real Estate Disruptor by USA Today.

“Fifteen years ago, I attended a conference, and a speaker described a different way of doing business, a way of succeeding by investing in relationships and helping other people, and I was really inspired by that. Long story short, I decided that I was going to embrace that methodology and abandon my ruthless ways. It was a long, hard road of reinvention and of converting myself from this ruthless individual to someone who lives now to serve others,” says Jonathan.

We chat about Jonathan’s journey to founding Keyser, as well as:

• Reimagining the commercial real estate industry

• Why the industry is so ruthless

• His tips for improving the culture of a business “the Keyser way”

• Myths about the commercial real estate industry

• And more

In today’s episode, we chat with Larry Ludwig, website developer, marketing expert and CEO of Ludwig Media. Larry specializes in helping companies learn how to use internet marketing to get leads and create better relationships with customers.

Working with the internet since the early 90s, when he started his own web development and hosting business, Larry started working for himself when he created Investor Junkie in 2018—  which grew from zero traffic to over 300,000 unique visitors per month. It’s evident that Larry’s decades of experience lend to his ability to deliver results for his clients. 

We’ll chat with Larry about how to use the web effectively to get leads and grow your business, as well as…

• How his experience in the early years of the internet put him on the path to helping modern business owners

• Where businesses are going wrong when it comes to internet marketing

• The importance of knowing how to acquire traffic organically

• The “must haves” for a successful online presence

• Where the internet is “going,” and how you can get ahead of it

• And more