Okay, today’s show is a little bit different to what you’d expect if you had have listened to or watched previous shows, but I just said, this might be your first one.
 
So, you might think it’s, this is how we roll, well, let’s not. Normally we’ve got a whole bunch of segments, and different tools and, and stuff to offer such as book reviews and tech reviews, and all that sort of stuff.
 
    • Today primarily the whole podcast is gonna be talking to Mike Michalowicz. He is the author of a number of books. He’s got about six books out. He’s most recent book is “Fix This Next”, we’ll be talking to him about that in our conversation.
    • I think he’s most well known for a book called “Profit First”. It’s such a powerful book, that we’ve Builders Business Blackbelt, the Profit First System, is a requirement.
    • If you’re going to be a member of Builders Business Blackbelt, you must implement the Profit First System, because it is one of the most profound processes to implement into any business, not just the building business, and the turnarounds I’ve seen from a financial point of view have been amazing.
    • Mike is an amazing guy, he’s incredibly helpful, he’s incredibly knowledgeable. And I just love it when I get the chance to hang out with him and have a chat with him.
 
So let’s listen to my conversation with Mike Michalowicz.
 
Links
    • Fix this Next https://www.amazon.com/Fix-This-Next-Change-Business/dp/0593084411
    • Profit First https://www.amazon.com.au/Profit-First-Transform-Cash-Eating-Money-Making-ebook/dp/B01HCGYTH4
    • The One Thing https://www.the1thing.com/
    • The Infinite Game https://simonsinek.com/product/the-infinite-game/

The New Book!

Also, before we get stuck into the main show, just wanna remind you about the successful builders toolkit. It's a book and it contains everything. Absolutely everything, from soup to nuts that we talk about in Builders Business Blackbelt with our builders. So this is all stuff that has been tested in all sorts of areas and been proven to work.

And if you want a copy of it, what you can do is there is a QR code on your screen right now, which is gonna be a bit difficult.

Transcription of the show!

Hear my conversation with Mike Michalowicz
 
A lot of my books are based upon biomimicry, look what happens in nature and translate it and, I looked at humans as human an animal and, you look at the patterns we do and when a hiker gets lost in the woods, we walk in these circular patterns.
 
Actually a story broke out of Australia, maybe three, four months ago, a couple was out hiking a ford came through and they got lost. They were saved by rescuers, they’re lucky not to perish unceremoniously, out in the woods.
 
Well, if they had a compass, they would know where true North is, and if they, they knew where their object was, they can march directly toward it. Most hikers are found very close to safety. But they’re moving in circles,
 
– Yeah.
 
– not getting to safety, and therefore they perish. Well, there’s a mechanism that plays into humanity that facilitates our navigation of life. And it’s called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– What I did was, I realized that foundationally, for example, through according to Maslow, you and I have physiological needs. We both need to breathe air, drink water, eat food. It’s a foundational biological need. And since we’re neurologically widened ourselves, if, if I’m thirsty, I’ll notice, if I’m hungry, I’ll notice. If I can’t breathe, I’ll notice.
 
And it’s only when those needs are satisfied, do we elevate to other human needs, like ultimately belonging self-actualization is the highest level, there’s five levels.
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– Maslow argued, anytime the base is compromised, we automatically revert to the base.
 
– Yeah.
 
– Well, I translated that, kind of biology that hierarchy of needs via biomimicry into a business hierarchy of needs, and it looks like this.
 
– I was just about to say,
 
– To the five.
 
– [Mick] I feel that we’re going to experience some of the Mike Michalowicz graphic magic. Is very high tech.
 
– Is very high tech, yeah.
 
– [Mick] And so this isn’t gonna translate too well to the audio only version, but what he’s holding up is a pyramid,
 
– I know.
 
– [Mick] with five lines across it. So it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, go look at it.
 
– Yeah, this is my PowerPoint, I call it power paper.
 
– Yeah, right.
 
– I always, so foundation and I can do a very obscene version of this if you wish. But, we’ll avoid that. Foundationally every business, I wrote the word sales here. Every business foundationally needs sales cause it creates cash. It’s oxygen for a business. Okay, Maslow, you and I have to breathe air, a business needs to breathe in cash,
 
– Yeah.
 
– that’s it sales.
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– Interestingly though, more sales alone is not a cure for a business. Just like more oxygen does not support life. We need to absorb that oxygen to our bloodstream, breathing more actually a certain point becomes detrimental called hyperventilation.
 
– Yeah.
 
– Can cause you get dizzy. You can actually over oxygen, you can kill yourself.
 
– Yeah.
 
– So sales is necessary, but it alone is not adequate. The next level above that is profit, and, what profit does is the creation of stability. Meaning it’s the retention of cash, which gives runway to a business when there’s instability, and business is fraught with instability, there’s hourly or daily instability.
 
Some, some of us don’t know how sales are gonna be next week. Many of us don’t. So there’s these fluctuations, profitability smooth that out. Sometimes a pandemic strikes the entire effing globe, when that happens, the businesses that haven’t been focusing on profitability, they went out of business.
 
– Yeah.
 
– I mean, I really appreciate you saying how many business owners reached out to you saying “Profit First” saved them. I’ve received more emails and calls, and literal written letters from people saying, it saved their lives.
 
– Well,
 
– Yeah.
 
– will they save their lives. They save their lives. They use the system, and I’m honored to be part of the journey, but they did it.
 
– Yeah.
 
– They had sales creating cash, they extracted that cash and they reserved it, which, which allows them to navigate the bumps and bruises. And, it also brings about what owners desire for business, which for many, is financial freedom.
We started the business in part for our own financial freedom, our own financial security, which then, when that satisfied, the next level need we have is order. Order is the creation of efficiency, meaning a business is not solely dependent on the owner or key employees.
 
The business can run in our absence, which is the other definition of why many business owners start a business, personal freedom. I don’t want, I don’t want the curious business is my back, if I wanna go away for an extended vacation, I want my business to continue to generate income.
 
– Yeah.
 
– Well that’s, and then make money. That’s the order level. Two more levels above that as impact. Impact is the creation of transformations. And, what happens at this level is an actually, Mick, this is inherent to your business. Is that, impact is the transformation of our clients or customers lives.
 
Their lives are permanently changed for the better. Now, you’re, it’s inherent to what you do. I mean, that’s, that’s the objective of your business in a big way. And mine too. There are some businesses where you think is impossible to impact.
 
Like, if you make toilet paper, toilet paper is toilet paper. Well, there’s some toilet paper companies, that say we’re gonna be environmentally responsible,
 
– Yeah.
 
– we’re gonna shift, the negative impact we’re having on our environment, and customers notice that actually it serves them, and they say, “I’m buying your product because of what it means, and what you’re doing for our environment.”
 
So any brand can have impact. Once that’s adequately satisfied, the highest level is called legacy. Legacy is a creation of permanence. And what I mean by this is that, the business is designed to live into perpetuity, it’s beyond efficiency.
 
It’s not just keep it running on other people, but that the business can even reinvent itself, it can shift. It’s designed now for generations.
 
And what’s so interesting is, when I was interviewing business owners that had worked on legacy or achieved it, they said, “I’ve always thought I was a business owner. Then I had a realization one morning, I was a business steward.”
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– ” Meaning, I had a responsibility to bring this business to life, but it’s not my business. It’s not about my involvement even, it’s the containers of the business.” And so just a quick summary of this. This is the hierarchy of needs.
 
So essentially every single business I studied countless business. This is the DNA that makes up all business. I don’t care if you’re Amazon, or you’re brand new little startup. This is the make of a business.
 
You foundationally need sales first to support at a profit. You need profit in order to build efficiency cause there’s no cash for it, you need order to behave a systemized impact and change lives at a mass level and so forth.
 
Well, we always start at the foundation first, and simply as yourself is adequate. So right now, anyone listening in can say, “Do I have any sales?” If you have no sales, you got a sell the problem. It’s that simple.
 
If you do have some sales, the question then becomes, is it adequate to support profit? And the only way to determine that is, you ask yourself, “Do we have any profit?” If you sales are no profit, “Well, why are we extracting profit? Do we not have a profit system, that’s a profit problem?
 
Our sales so minuscule that it need to be amplified a little bit to draw profit.”
 
So we look at the link between the two, but the goal is not to build this massive foundation, for example of sales, keep on building it, and then put this little system of profit, like a shed above that foundation. It’ll fall within it. You don’t build a skyscraper foundation for a shed,
 
– Yeah.
 
– And you don’t build a shed foundation for a skyscraper. So he’s work in relation. And, the last thing I wanna share is, it’s kinda like a volcano building a mountain.
 
When, when the volcano erupts, it flows the bottom that builds a bigger base, and it builds this peak, and then erupts again and the base gets bigger, and the levels get bigger. So this over time will be something we cycled through into perpetuity.
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– This is you can see it’s a pyramid. It’s not a ladder, you don’t climb to the top and wave to your friends. You, you build the structure to support it’s way up. Start the foundation, build your way up.
 
– Yeah.
 
– That’s the system
 
– One of the things that I talk about a lot with builders when they have a conversation with me, is the myth of turnover. Because builders quite often ask, “I need more work. I need more work, or a need better quality work.” Or requests of that ilk.
 
When I drill down as to why they’re asking that, it’s generally because they’re not profitable enough. And most people think that the answer to it, is more turnover, more work. It’s actually a myth. So I asked Mike about it and here’s what he said.
 
– Yeah, so when, when people say a more turnover will make my business healthier, I say, lair. No. You gotta, you gotta bitch slap people and wake them up. Because, listen, that is, proof that myth has perpetuated everywhere. Wait, dude, we got Mark Cuban, famous investor, he says sales cures everything, bullshit.
 
– Yeah. Bullshit. It doesn’t. Here’s what turnover does. As you amplify your turnover, particularly if you’re a small business, as you amplify turnover, that puts more responsibility on the owner.
 
I mean, listen, if I’m a small business, I’m usually the key. I know more about this business than anyone else. I probably, care for this business more than anyone else. As turnover increases, that’s more responsibility for my organization. I have to deliver on those promises.
 
Every time I have a sale, I gotta deliver on that promise. So more turnover, more promises, more promises, more obligation in the business. Small business owner, the obligation falls on you.
 
So as turnover increases, people start pulling their hair out. They start losing their mind going, “I have so much to do, I’m not making money. I must do more.” And it becomes more stressful.
 
– Yeah.
 
– Profit must be extracted. And here’s the key. I talked about this in “Profit First”. Profit is not an event, you don’t grow your sales into it. Profit is a habit.
 
– Yeah.
 
– It gets baked into every single transaction.
 
So if today, if you have sales happening right now and not profit, you probably have a profit problem. We gotta start extracting every transaction, because once you start extracting it at a low level of turnover, then as you increase turnover, that starts multiplying and profit amplifies.
 
But if you have no profit system, you’re simply putting more stress on your organization, and you’re putting yourself in a more jeopardy. Because as you sell more, more turnover, more obligation, you start incurring more expenses.
 
So now you start putting more burden on the company, not just emotional burden, but financial burden. And that’s a very precarious position. I had a friend, a dear friend, he still is, he’ll go nameless.
 
A $250 million in turnover annually, U.S. $250 million annually.
 
That’s a big small company. He had hundreds of employees. He was heralded. I had other friends like, “Oh,” they’re all entrepreneurs. They’re like, “Oh, my God, you do, you do 250. It’s amazing.” And I felt the same way. I was blinded by the light.
 
One project went wrong, and it wasn’t like they messed up. They just didn’t manage the cashflow. It’s sunk the entire company. Is about six months ago, they closed the doors.
 
Hundreds of people lost their jobs. It’s all done. And, I think it’s the ultimate shame, because he wasn’t profitable. He didn’t have that runway, the stability that brings about. So, entrepreneurs that don’t focus on profit and think they can sell their way into it, are putting themselves in, in jeopardy.
 
But also, they’re putting all their employees at jeopardy.
 
So shame on us. We have to be profitable.
 
– Yeah.
 
– And the final thing is, our clients wants to be profitable. Like, our clients don’t wanna pay us money and say, they don’t say, “I hope you’re gonna survive tomorrow. Here’s my money.” They expect us to survive tomorrow. They say, “Here’s my money.” And they say, “I want your undivided attention. I want you caring for me.” And the only way to give our clients undivided attention, is if we’re not worrying about, panicking about making money tomorrow. So our clients want us to be profitable. They don’t say, “Hey, charge me more. Can you rip me off?” They don’t say that. But they say, “I want your full attention. I don’t want you worrying about anything, but serving me.” That mandates profitability.
 
– Yeah. I,
 
– I’m I getting to inject, I get a little fired up.
 
– No, go for it.
 
– Okay.
 
– I don’t know how many coffees did you have before this.
 
– Now it’s eight O’clock, I don’t drink it at night because cause this is what happens. I get so fired up and I get into trouble. I’m just drinking water and I’m getting all jacked up.
 
– That’s good, high on life. But this, this is like, I get it that, we need to get passionate about this because I’m a living example of what you’re talking about now, before the interview that I did with you all of those years ago, when “Profit First” came out, I had a business called UncoverHiddenProfits.com I was doing that, that I was reading the book, and going through the instant
 
– Yeah.
 
– assessment underneath, a banner that was the backdrop for the podcast. Two foot high letters UncoverHiddenProfits.com. I’m reading through the book, and it turns out I didn’t even know what a profit was.
 
– Dude, you’re honest. Sorry, I just used the dude word, that’s fine.
 
– Yeah, that’s all right.
 
– Dude, mate, you’re honest. You’re honest. Do you know many people say that? I mean are behaving that way, not profitable, myself included, and in total denial.
 
Like, I would brag like, “Oh, my business showed off 17% profit last year.” And someone asked me, “Where is it big?” Like “I don’t fucking know.” “I don’t know”. I just know in this, this accounting form it showed it. That’s the real danger we cloud ourselves about, what profit is.
 
– Yeah.
 
– I’ll be very clear what profit is. Profit is cold, hard cash. Exactly. Waiting for one purpose, distribution to the shareholder. So if it’s in a reserve for the shareholder, that’s profit, if it gets distributed to the shareholder, that’s profit. If that money is stored away, but then gets put back in the business. It ain’t freaking profit.
 
– No.
 
– That’s an expense.
 
– Yeah.
 
– And, but we play this game, right? “Well, the accounting system said I had a 22% profit. I spent it all, I plowed it back.
 
– Yeah.
 
– I pushed it back.”
 
– As if,
 
– You’ve to spend money to make money.
 
– Yep, oh, that killed me. I hate that. It takes innovation to make money, it takes out of the box thinking to make money.
 
– Yeah.
 
– So, it just kills me when people say that, and I was one of the people, but now I’m very clear. It is that simply delineated, profit is cash that goes into your pocket. Thank you for owning a business.
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– Thank you for providing jobs, thank you for taking that risk, and starting something that’s innovative and serve so many people.
 
– Yeah.
 
– Expenses are anything we use the money for, besides putting this the shareholder’s pocket.
 
– Yeah.
 
– You buy some, you buy some technology, you purchase a car. Again, any of those expenses are expenses. That’s something that may still benefit the shareholder, but profit is a cold, hard cash distribution. It is that simple.
 
– Yeah. Mike has written plenty of books, as I said, six in total. And it’s really interesting identifying the reasons why he writes each of those books. So I asked Mike, why did he write this latest book.
 
– It’s called “Fix This Next”. And, how it came about, Mick is. Over the years, I’ve been very lucky to build a readership that’s pretty responsive. So I send out emails now pretty regularly asking my people are willing to respond, some direction on my new books.
 
It takes me about five years to write a book, so I, emailed out about five years ago, asked my audience, “What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in your business now.” With the expectation they would say, “Oh, it’s marketing, or something.” I wanted to write the next book after I think it was “Clockwork” at that point.
 
– “Clockwork” yeah.
 
– And,
 
– I’ll let you know which order the books were written
 
– Yeah, you can,
 
– just in case you forget.
 
– Yeah, you can impress it.
 
– Yeah.
 
– So, so I got the response but, I’m not the most technically savvy guy. I, I triple clicked or something. Cause the same email went out multiple times in the same day. And first of all, you pissed off a lot of people like, right?
 
Hey, like, “What are you doing? You’re trying to ruin my life.” I’m like, you know what? “Go after yourself.” I’m just like, I’m not trying to ruin his life and, pretty harsh for feedback. But, some people answered the same question on the same day, the same person, with different answers.
 
– [Mick] Right.
 
– And that was, that was a wake up call. Cause I asked, “What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing in the year ahead.” And some people in the morning were saying it sales, in the afternoon they said as their systems, in the evening it’s vision.
 
They were changing their answers. And that’s when it became very clear to me, that the biggest challenge entrepreneurs face is knowing what their biggest challenge is. That became the thesis of the book. How do we figure out what the business actually really imperatively needs from us right now? You were constantly rushing to the par, there’s a million of parent issues like, you and I right now, we could stop this and go to our email, or go to one of our colleagues. And there’s something we can work on right now.
 
– Yep.
 
– All the time. And that’s actually how we run our business. And that’s the mistake. There’s only by definition, one thing that can be the most important thing, the business needs from us, this book is to find it, fix it, and move forward,
 
– Just,
 
– That’s the idea.
 
– Just rewind a little bit by definition. By definition, there’s only one thing that’s the most important. Just expand on that, with, with your philosophy
 
– Yeah.
 
– about that, because I’m an absolute believer in that. And was it you that said, no, it wasn’t you. So I can’t call this for you.
 
– It was really smart, and you liked it.
 
– It was really smart. I believe it was “The One Thing “.
 
– Oh yeah.
 
– Book “The One Thing”, and the author was basically saying that the word priorities wasn’t really used in any, any large way until the ’80s. Prior to that it was priority.
 
– Yeah. Right, that, that is the source, I believe. It is one thing authors, Gary Keller, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with him, along with priorities came this concept of multitasking.
 
– Yeah.
 
– The idea of one most is pretend, all the way across the big lake between us, if you and I had this massive chain, and theoretically, we could pull on it as hard as we can, the chain will break. And it always breaks in the same spot, the weakest link.
 
– Yeah.
 
– And, you and I can try to manipulate it. You could give some slack, while I pull harder or vice versa, is irrelevant what we do,
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– the weakest link is always the breaking point. Therefore, if we wanna strengthen that chain, fixing all the other links, making them stronger is of no benefit. Because if we pull in that weakest link is not addressed, it will always be only as strong as that link, and it breaks.
 
Therefore, the one thing to focus on in strengthening a chain, is the one link that’s the weakest, enhance that and the entire strength of the chain goes up. Well, our business, is chain of events.
 
There’s a lot of elements that work together, but it all isn’t synchronicity. If one piece is weak, it’s holding the whole business back.
 
So the question is, where is that one thing? And most of us, we have no clue what it is. We don’t have the time to figure out what it is.
 
We are firefighters. Put out the fire, maybe coming in with a plan or agenda for the day but, it’s dictated more about firefighting than anything is the emails and the questions and the client threatening to leave and all that stuff.
 
And maybe, maybe hire a couple employees and you’re not a firefighter, or you’re the fire chief. Just sending everyone out, is there an Aussie term for, for firefighters like sparky? No, that’s an electrician.
 
– Yes, yeah.
 
– Is there a term for,
 
– No, well fireys
 
– where you,
 
– we call them fireys.
 
– Fireys.
 
– Fireys, I love fireys . That’s cool. Yeah, so you become a fire chief and, that’s not an improvement in the business. It actually confines us because now we’re simply directing people to do things, and we’re constantly directing, but we’re not getting work done ourselves.
 
That’s why the vast majority of businesses will never have more than two, maybe three employees. So in “Fix This Next”, it’s about being very deliberate. We do have to operate and maintain the business.
 
– Yeah.
 
– You do have to keep some plates spinning. But at any given time, there’s a weak link and we gotta find it. So this book is a tool to pinpoint that weak link, then a method to give it strength, and move on to the next link and so forth.
 
– If you’ve ever read the book by Simon Sinek, “The Infinite Game”, it talks about having a just course, having a purpose. And when you understand that it can really make a powerful difference to how you approach your business. So I asked Mike what his purpose was, why does he do what he does? He’s an incredibly hard worker. He really loves to help entrepreneurs and business owners. And I just wanted to find out what his driving force was.
 
– That’s my life’s purpose to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. I have on my wall. It’s a constant reminder. I have it every day. I look at it. I actually have it on my wrist too. And over here.
 
Every day, I’m reminded of this importance. I, I have my own reason behind it and I’m on bore with the details, but is life critical to me, that, that small businesses successful. Particularly now,
 
– Does it have something,
 
– there is,
 
– With personal experience?
 
– My personal experience were about it. You wanna know it?
 
– Well, no, you,
 
– You wanna hear it?
 
– you were saying you didn’t wanna bore me with the details, but I think I may know the details, personal experience.
 
– You know the,
 
– It’s when my daughter came in,
 
– Yeah, yeah.
 
– I was so F’d up in my own business, I had no understanding how to operate it healthily. Even though I was doing millions of dollars, I lost everything. I lost a house, I lost everything.
 
– Yeah.
 
– Except, my daughter, she came to me at the piggy bag and she’s like, “Daddy, I’ll start providing for us.” And I felt like such an ass. That, you Mick, myself, everyone listening in, the reason we’re in business in a big way is to be providers. And I couldn’t do it.
 
Well, that, that just became, that I needed that. I hate to say it, but I needed that awaken that, we have a responsibility to provide. and sadly, most entrepreneurs fail to do it. So I wanna fix that. Now with this pandemic, we, the, 20, 2008 was the great recession. I’m calling 2020, the great reinvention. Businesses at the reinvent sure, the customer’s reinventing everything.
 
The customer has new demands. Safety is a concern, communicate, everything’s changing.
 
So customer perception changes, we have to respond. The thing is this, big business like Amazon, and these mega companies, they’re on tanker ships while this tsunami wave turns in, they can’t turn.
 
Maybe cause they’re so big, it’ll just roll over them and they’ll kinda hang on, but they can’t pivot, they can’t turn. You and I, were a little jet skis. And we can go, zing, zing, zing, zing. And,
 
– How do we go again?
 
– What?
 
– How do we go again?
 
– Did you like that?
 
– Yeah.
 
– Zing, zing, zing, zing.
 
– That’s a good. Yeah.
 
– You liked that.
 
– That’s a good impersonation of a jet ski. If I’ve ever heard one.
 
– Yeah, that’s the fastest jet ski in the world. And, what’s happening is, the customer demand changing, we need to change accordingly. I’ve every recession. I studied all of them back, 17 recessions back. Every single time, the great reinvention actually came out of small business.
 
Small business started to redefine the industry. Stories of like Airbnb, and Quincy that came out of, Boober, came out of recessions. Microsoft came out of recession, Apple out of recession. All the businesses come out of recession. Fast forward to 2005, 2008, whatever, there’s gonna be some new mega companies that you never heard of today, because they’re the itty-bitty companies. But they are zing, zing, zing, zinging their way to fix what the customer wants now
 
– Yeah.
 
– to address that. And the big companies, they’re just two slow. So I think this is the greatest opportunity ever put in front of us.
 
– 100%.
 
– And I’d say it’s actually our responsibility. If we want this macro economy, the global economy to recover, it’s on your back, Mick, it’s on mine, it’s on everyone’s listening. And, a select few is, are gonna choose to step up in a big way. So, why not us? Why not you?
 
– Yeah.
 
– So, let’s, let’s do it.
 
– So to get this book in the hands of people, they go where?
 
– Oh, so I got two things for you. So,
 
– Do I drop by under your house, what’s the story?
 
– Yeah, come over, come over to my house. Amazon’s the best place
 
– Okay.
 
– just because you can get at least expensively quickly. And I know I just kind of bastardized Amazon for bringing a tanker ship, but, but, it also supports little business,
 
– Yean.
 
– because we sell through that platform. So Amazon is the best, but here’s the, even if you buy it, it’s all it all bookstores. So if you prefer another bookstore, that’s fine. And get any format you wish, print or audible. Audible is my favorite personally.
 
– [Mick] Yeah.
 
– Kindle. Here’s the little offer I was thinking, Mick, is if people listening to this podcast email me, and it’s real simple. When you get the book, my name is Mike Michalowicz, It’s hard to spell, I get, but it’s on the book. So,
 
– I can spell it.
 
– email me, Do you want me to spell it?
 
– No, I can spell it.
 
– Oh, you don’t have to prove yourself. Okay, now you’re a weird, now you’re a freaking weirdo. All right. You know my books in sequence, you can spell, if you have a freaking poster of me above your bed, I wouldn’t be surprised. So, it’s [email protected]. But email me a, Mick, what I was thinking was like, what rhymes with Mick’s Dick.
 
– Dick.
 
– Mick’s not a dick, I like that. Email me, in the subject line put, Mick is not a dick. As many exclamation marks do you want, that will stand out, and just say, I got the book, I got “Fix This Next”, I will email you, I’ve prepared this thing called the last content. It was about 40 sections that didn’t make it into the final publication. That’s really impactful good stuff. So I will email you, it’s a PDF. But as a thank you, I’ll email you the last content that will further enhance the book. So just buy it on Amazon “Fix This Next”, email me Mick is not a dick. Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. And I will send you the last content.
 
– Yes.
 
– About that, is that cool?
 
– Let me know if anybody modifies the subject.
 
– Yeah, Mick’s kind of a dick. Your ex-girlfriends, Mick is a total dick.
 
– Yeah,
 
– Yeah, yeah. We get all of that. Mike Michalowicz, thank you so much for staying up late. Cause I know you’re an old man now, and like to go to bed early. You, you’re a living legend, I love how you describe things. You make learning fun. I laugh all the time when I’m listening to the audio books, but I learn, en, entertainment first education second, I think is the way that your role and it absolutely works.
 
– Thank you.
 
– We’re not taking things too seriously that, we have to learn this. You making it fun. Thank you very much for, for being on the podcast. I appreciate it lots.
 
– It’s a, it’s a pleasure walking life’s path with your, Mick. So, thank you for having me on your show.
 
– And hopefully it won’t be too long before you can come back out to Australia, and we can have,
 
– Oh, I’d be honored, yeah.
 
– have dinner again, and talk more about AC, DC because that’s important.
 
– That’s key, yeah.

Wrapping Up

So as per usual, it’s really important to have a takeaway from the podcast, from what we’ve been talking about in the podcast. And I think, the obvious takeaway that all would be suggesting you make happen from this podcast is getting to Mike Michalowicz’s material.
 
He’s got such a great way of explaining things, and it is really, really focused on getting you more time freedom, more financial freedom, and really enjoying your business.
 
There is a bunch of books you can choose from. There’s obviously his latest one “Fix This Next” My absolute, favorite one, not because it’s, it’s the funnest one to listen to or read, but the profound effect that can have on your business is “Profit First”.
 
And for that, the takeaway would be listened to it because Mike’s a hell of a lot of fun to listen to.
 
He’s very, very entertaining way to consume a book, but I think you’re gonna need to get the paper version as well because when you start to do the instant assessment and actually figure out the current financial situation for your business, I really, really encourage you to do that. Like it will blow your mind.
 
You might even shed a tear, but at least you’ll get really, really clear on what the actual situation is. So many people have no clue. They use a hope strategy or they think they know, but as soon as you start to do a bit of an interrogation, they really don’t know.
 
So that’s, that’s a great exercise to go through, but you’ll need to download the book, or at least download the, the PDF I think from his website. And he’ll tell you about that in the book.
 
So you can sit down and do it properly. It’s a bit hard to do it while they’re listening to the book. A couple of others of his that I would highly, highly recommend. Was his first book, which is called “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.”
 
You’ve got to listen to that just for the intro, because it’s all about, now, I’m not gonna tell you what the first, first bit of it’s about because it’s, it’s a little crude but hilarious and an incredible book about when our backs are against the wall.
 
We can be very, very creative with coming up with solutions. And by using that process, by artificially putting our backs up against the wall in our businesses sometimes, we can come up with tremendous efficiencies that can be applied to our business to make them significantly better.
 
Another big favorite it’s the first one, I ever listened to, which is how I met Mike, which is, “The Pumpkin Plan”. And believe it or not, it’s all about the amazing parallels between how to grow a giant pumpkin, the size of a small car, and how to build a small business, successfully. And the parallels are unbelievable.
 
You’ll learn a whole lot about how pumpkin seeds for giant pumpkins are worth more than gold, white for white, which I never knew, but you’ll find that out as well. Quite amazing so I would be suggesting you go and consume a whole bunch of Mike Michalowicz’s stuff.
 
He’s an amazing guy. He’s funny, he’s very, very helpful. And he’s on a mission to help business owners and entrepreneurs so, get into his cause, and get help with his information. He’s an amazing dude.
 
Okay, that’s it for another episode of Builders Business Success Podcast. Now, if it’s raised any questions, if you would like help with your builder’s business, here’s what I’d like to, you to do.
 
Now, if you are a builder and you need to be around about a million dollars a year turnover, which for a domestic home building business, isn’t all that terrific.
 
But if you’re around about a million dollars plus in your building business, and you’re having challenges with quality clients, with systems and procedures, with profitability, with any of those really super frustrating things, I’d love to have a conversation with you, and help you through that particularly with our quality client pathway, to show you how you can get rid of those.
 
Time wasters, the tire kickers, the price shoppers, get better quality clients into your business, and most of all get paid for your quotes.
 
Every builder should be being paid for their time, their effort and their experience.
 
So if that is something that you want help with, I’m more than happy to jump on a call, and point you in the right direction to show you how that can be done. All you need to do is hit the button underneath this video, fill out a little form, and then we’ll jump on a, on a phone call.
 
You’ll get access to my calendar to be able to jump on a call. If you’re listening to this on the audio only version, all you need to do is navigate to buildersbusinessblackbelt.com.au, and there’ll be a couple of buttons on that website. There you just press that and go through that same process.
And I look forward to talking to you in-person.
 
So that’s it for this show. Looking forward to being with you again on the next, Builders Business Success Podcast episode.
 
I’m Mick Hawes Builders Business Blackbelt, that’s it.
Bye for now.