Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Excuses. Here I am. So hi guys, and welcome to this week's Profit first podcast. So I'm Stephen Edwards. I'm the founder of Grow, Profit First Accountant. I'm a certified Profit first professional. I'm also a chartered certified accountant and founder of Grow. So in this podcast we talk about Profit first as well as anything that's going to help you build better business. Because ultimately I run an accounting business which helps you build a solid finance function so you can have data and up to date numbers to really understand how your business is performing, make better decisions, because you've got the numbers are up to date, you understand the story in your business, but to ultimately to, to make more money. And I don't say, and I say that in a way that we shouldn't feel guilty if that's one of our targets. Yes, we should want to make a, maybe an impact with other people and help other people in their life. But ultimately, most of us are not running charities. We are running businesses designed to make a profit. When you're making a profit, everything's easier. You can hire a better team, you can take holidays out for yourself as a business owner. You can make better decisions. You can invest in new technology, you can create new services, you can entertain your clients. So it's pretty much a win, win situation when we're making more money in our business. So one of the things I want to talk about today is I want to talk about two things.
[00:01:30] The main thing I want to talk about is at the beginning of the year, at the end of 2024, in one of my podcasts and newsletter and I'm going to put the link in this podcast. And if you're reading this on the newsletter, which is the Profit First Club, you can Google it and you will find it's on a platform called Beehive.
[00:01:49] I'm going to put a link to the podcast and newsletter I shared about how to make 2025 your best year ever and also how you can make an average month become an amazing month. And the reason I'm going to focus on those two things is I walk the walk. Everything I talk about, I don't make up is either a story that's relevant for my business based off something that's happened, or it's something I've seen in another person's business. But it's a real story. It's all real things. And I've just shared with a prospect who I've just had a chat with who's interested in Profit first coaching. I've Just shared some absolutely incredible stories from some of our clients. One of them, the larger ones, turning over multi million pounds and they didn't make a profit for seven years because they're relying on investment. And they actually made the first profit ever in three months.
[00:02:44] No, it's not all to do with me. It's not all to do with profit first and my team. But yes, we help them, we helped trigger them, make a change in the business. Someone shaved off £200,000 in their business, paid off £100,000 worth of debt, and they can now finally take holidays to Florida. They're taking more holidays they've ever taken from the business. So we've seen someone else go from 20k profit to 60k profit in 2 years, take themselves off the tools. So we've got so many kind of success stories. But I want to talk specifically about what I'm seeing close to the furnace on the ground this year and also results we're getting is I said how to make 2025 your best year ever. And the reason I want to go back to this is I don't want to say, look at me, look what I said. But we are now having our best year ever at grow in our business.
[00:03:36] We are having the best year ever. So that podcast, that newsletter I shared at the beginning of the year, I passionately believed you guys could do the same.
[00:03:46] If you are listening to this, if you are reading this, I am super passionate. It's why I do what I do. I want you to honestly have, as a business owner, your best year ever. And even though we are more than halfway through the year now, we've just passed halfway. That. That's why I think it's quite timely for me to do a little bit of a recap on this and just to share the story is you don't need to necessarily have a crazy six months to finish before December to have your best year ever. But I want you to take that principle and that thought, how can I make the next 12 months my best 12 months ever? And I'm going to share the stuff I talked about at the beginning because it's pretty much come true in our business. But one of the core things to help it come true, and this links straight back into profit, first is stop chasing revenue for the sake of chasing revenue. Because often as business owners, we say to ourselves, if I can bring in an extra £1,000amonth, if I can bring in an extra £5,000amonth, if I CAN bring in an extra £20,000amonth, or 50, whatever it means for you, then I'll be okay. I can hire that team member, I can do this thing and then finally I have the breathing space to pay my VAT on time, to pay my corporation tax, to take enough holidays. But I can tell you from I our own business and also working closely with other people with their bookkeeping, doing their accounting and also helping them profit first is if you don't have the right mindset, what happens. And this is literally what profit first is about. Everything else in your business just goes up to meet the revenue. Your revenue goes up, everything else ramps up. Oh, I need another team member, I need a bigger office, I need X, Y and Z. So what I want you to do, and this is what I talked about when I said how to make a kind of average month, also an incredible month. Don't rely on these super crazy months to be profitable. You need to create a model for your business. This is what I talked about last week, I believe it was last week. How to create a model that works in your business. And when we talk about financial modeling, it doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't need to be loads of KPIs, loads of metrics, understanding profit and losses and costing and balance sheets. I'm talking of something simple I talked about on a piece of paper. So if I'm, let's pretend you're turning over £10,000 in a month rather than saying I've got my expenses, I've got my team, I've got everything else and I'm left with this. I've got my bounce back loan, I've got whatever I've got to pay. I want you to reverse engineer it. This is the core foundation of profit first. I want you to start with your profit and I want you to take off your profit. So let's say you want to pay yourselves £4,000amonth. @ that time, that might be a million miles where you are right now. So that's 120k business. It might be that you're paying yourself 20k and we're talking about paying yourself close to 50k instead more than doubling your profit. You might be in a million miles off that now, but I want you to play this game and I talked about this last week, so I won't overemphasize it, but on a piece of paper, take off 4000, that leaves you 6000 you need to run your business on and I want you to model it out. How much of that is wages? How much is that? Is Overhead, what does it look like? Because the truth is if you don't make it work on paper, it can't work in real life. So when I said to make 2025 your best year ever, to base a, an an average month on what you want to what your dream profit should look like, this is what we've done in our business.
[00:07:03] We are at the moment on course to have our highest profit we've ever made in the business.
[00:07:08] And bear in mind we walk the talk with profit first. We've seen huge results in the past, but run cost had the best year ever if it carries on.
[00:07:15] And what I love about it is our turnover has not really gone up. And I'm so excited to share that because we are walking the talk with profit first and we are seeing other people do the same.
[00:07:27] Stop chasing revenue, create a better model, a better business. Reverse engineer the lifestyle you need as a business owner first and foremost and then everything else needs to follow.
[00:07:40] And yeah, I thought this would be a timely reminder if you're reading, if you're listening to this because we are halfway through the year.
[00:07:46] So how can you make the next 12 months the best 12 months you've ever had without necessarily chasing more and more revenue? And for the record, I am awful growing your revenue. I love, I love growth. You know, it'd be amazing if our business is doing double the revenue in the next few years. However, it should not be your ultimate focus. It should be to serve you as a business owner. It should be to build a better business, to ultimately live a better life for yourself first and then you can really make a bigger impact on your team and your customers and your suppliers. Your probably heard the expression we've got to put our own oxygen mask on first. And that's why I'm sharing this story with you. So I'm about to, this is quite timely for me. So in about 11 days time, I'm about to go to Florida for a month. Well, I'm going to Florida for three weeks and I'm taking a month out of the business. And I share that. Not, you know, there's not a tiny part of me that wants to show off in any shape, way or form. I, I want to hopefully inspire people that yes, you can take a month off of your business if you're intentional and you build it to do that for you over the long term. Even if you're just a one man band company and it's just you, there is a way of doing that, I promise you. But it starts with the Same principle. You've got to think about what does that look like on paper and think about the intention of doing it before you can actually build your business towards that.
[00:09:06] And also when I come back, I am super excited that I am. You know, my purpose in life in the last two years has been to coach people.
[00:09:18] We, we. I can't coach everybody. The. The team, the business grow. We coach people with profit first. It's embedded into what we do. I also love coaching people personally, but, you know, I've not got enough capacity to do it for everybody. I coach some other accountants, but I also coach entrepreneurship and I really want to make an impact with people on a personal level. So when I come back from Florida, I will be sharing more information in terms of my VIP coaching. And I'm not saying that because I just shared we're doing really good in our business. We don't need to do this. I don't need to do this, but I want to do it. I want to help people at a deeper level. If you're ready for that commitment, that investment, and you truly want to break through in your business. Because one of the ways we get results in our business is we need to break through a ceiling. What happens is we grow our business and it hits a ceiling. It hits a limit of what the business is capable of and often, more often than not, what the business owner is capable of. So we need to expand our thinking. We need to grow on a personal level so we can actually grow our business. And that's what I want to help people do. I trained as a certified high performance coach last year, and because it's all about the person, it's all about growing the person, the business owner. Before we can do all this amazing stuff inside our business in terms of profit first, but in terms of the coaching, yes, profit first is a massive part of it because I'm super passionate about ultimately building a dream business.
[00:10:43] But also you as a person, you as a business owner, your mindset, what does your ideal week look like? What does your ideal life look like? That's all super important for me. I do not turn that switch off. I start there. I start with what does your life need to look like in the next three years?
[00:10:59] So if that's something of interest with you, please drop me an email. But I'm not going to share any more details properly until I'm back from Florida, which is my happy place in the world. I'm super excited to be going there with my family.
[00:11:11] They've just opened a new theme park in Universal called Epic Universe. They've got a new Harry Potter world, which we all have a bit of Harry Potter, let's be honest. But they've also got Nintendo Land and it just helps me switch off. We need to refresh in our business every now and again and that's what I'm about to do. And hopefully you guys, if you haven't already, are going to do the same to before the summer finishes and have a great week and I'll speak to you soon. Cheers, everyone.
[00:11:36] Excuses here I am. Sorry.
