Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, guys. Steve Edwards from Grow Profit First Accountant. So this week I want to talk about the emotional journey you go through when you're implementing profit first in your business.
[00:00:15] So we run a profit first accountancy practice. We've worked with dozens of clients and I'm sharing my tips and tricks and my experience of me and the team of what we see actually working with real business owners. So this journey is based off experience, it's not based off theory. And quite interestingly, anything you kind of take on this new in your business and your life, you can probably relate to this to some extent. But I want to specifically relate it to implementing profit first.
[00:00:49] So if you're, you know, a seasoned profit first veteran. So if you're, if you're already implementing yourself and you're happy with it, we can maybe refer back to this and figure out what can we optimize further or where have we perhaps got a bit stagnant and a bit relaxed, a bit comfortable? If, if you've, what most people have done, if they've, they've read the book, but they've not actually implemented profit first fully, which is fine at the beginning, but, but we want to be making progress over the long term. So I'm sure you'll be able to get something out of the podcast today.
[00:01:26] And if you haven't implemented profits at all, it's going to give you an idea of what you're going to get yourself into so you'll be better prepared. If you're better prepared, you're more likely to be successful. Essentially, we're talking about a road map, so I don't know about you, but before we had proper satnav, Google Maps, Apple, when, when I was growing up and I started driving, I had the RA set, RAC route planner, and I had to print off the directions to figure out where I'm going. But often I would get frustrated because I tried to understand the directions. My wife Becky would be trying to read the. In the directions when I'm driving, I said, what do you mean? That makes no sense. And we'd have to pull over, we'd go the wrong way. So. But once I've done it a few times, I kind of knew that was part of the journey. I knew that when we go on the journey to get to where we're going, it's going to follow a certain trajectory. And actually I'm going to be frustrated, I'm going to be emotional, but because I can expect it, I can handle it better. And that's the same with this emotional journey when it comes to implementing profit first. So when you first embark on something like profit first, when we deal with people, they get super pumped, they get super excited and we are super excited for them. It's a two way thing. There's dopamine all over the place. We're both super excited that you're going to go on this journey to potentially double your profit, triple your profit, or even if we're just adding tens of thousands of pounds to your profit. We're talking about changing your life essentially. And we're really excited for you because we know it works. It works most of the time. It doesn't work every single time that there's some rare exceptions, but it works most of the time and as long as you stick to it. So we're, we're excited. You're excited as the business owner. If you look at this picture on, on, on the screen, it's kind of like, oh, that's amazing. You know, I'm excited here, I can bring it on. Hello world, look at me smashing it. Everything's all brilliant. I'm really optimistic, enthusiastic about what's coming up in my business, in my life.
[00:03:33] Then what we see that happens after a short period of time is, oh my God, it's not solved all of my problems in three months.
[00:03:42] I'm still a little bit pinched for cash. I haven't got tens of thousands of extra money in my bank account to pay for the holiday to Florida, or all inclusive in Mexico or wherever you want to go. And what happens is people lose a little bit of confidence. And often at this point in the middle, when they feel stupid, useless, failure, they might be blaming themselves, they might be blaming us, there might be a combination of those things. But often they give up. And the truth is, most of the time when people hit this kind of despair curve at the bottom where you drop down and you're stuck in, in the valley, you're no longer on the peak and life is really all about peaks and valleys. It's a fantastic book called Peaks and Valleys by I believe is Spencer Johnson. Absolutely incredible book, is really short book. But this life is about peaks and valleys. So we're on this peak here. We feel invincible. When we hit this valley, we feel worthless and a failure. But often people have not implemented profit first fully. They've done a little bit of it, they've maybe done the odd bank account, they've not done all the bank accounts, they've not done all the pots, they might have done a profit pot, but they've not done a vat pot, so they're not paying their VAT on time or whatever that means for you. But often they're not doing it fully, anywhere near fully. So our role, when we work with people, you know, forget the fact we're accountants, we're just experienced accountability coaches in profit first. We also happen to be accountants, bookkeepers, tax advisors and business coaches as well. But our first role, first and foremost is to coach you through it, to help you understand this is normal, this is part of the journey. It doesn't mean your failure, it doesn't mean profit first is not working. It doesn't. It means it's hard work. When you go to the gym for the first week or two, you're excited, you're pumped. If, you know, let's say January, for example, if you just joined the gym in January, look at me, my brother in law is probably not watching this, but he, I haven't checked in with him, but he was. I'm going to smash it this year. I'm going to the gym four times a week. I don't know if he's still going to the gym now right at the moment. But it's what happens two months down the line. It becomes hard work. It's about the discipline, having someone who's been there, who's got the roadmap, who knows where you're going. They've been through it themselves as well as helped other people go through it. It's going to help you get out of this valley and then the curve up to, I can do this, I'm smashing it. Look at me. Actually, you can see a lot of people give up. A lot of people drop off at the bottom, in the top, bottom right corner here. And we see that happen with a lot of people and they say, profit first is not for me, it's not for my business. My business is special. My business, my industry is special. It doesn't work for me and my business, but the people that stick to it. And you're far more likely to stick to it if you've got someone holding you accountable. That's just a fact of life. And you're far more likely to get success in something if you've got a blueprint. We then step by step move towards smashing it. We don't smash it overnight. We get to the point where everything's a lot easier. I'm not saying all of your problems are solved, but it's a lot easier and you've broke through and, and you're getting real results you're getting a business that looks different. Because the truth is, if you keep on doing the same things, you're going to get the same results. You can't expect to double your business in 2025 and do the same things. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results.
[00:07:11] So even if you think of it from a scientific perspective, how do we get different results? We try different things, we test different things. Things. But the challenge is being committed and disciplined to see something through. And that's why Profit first is so powerful, because you're not guessing. You're not going on a new journey and trying a new program that doesn't work. You're going on something that does work. And if you do on your own, the challenge is you're going to give up. A lot of people read the book, they get some wins and they give up. The truth is there might be an in between. If I can draw a line. Can I draw a line here? Yeah, let me draw a line. I'm doing this live, so if I draw a little line. Oh, that's not a line. Let me pause the video.
[00:07:56] Okay, so I figured out how to do a line, but it's not in. Oh, there you go. It's not quite what I was expecting, but you can see that what I'm trying to say. So some people, if you're listening to this, hopefully it makes sense. But essentially you peak in the first kind of few weeks, you're super excited. You drop into this valley of despair, this uncertainty. You feel like it's not going to work and then you crawl yourself back of it and you. And you make big progress, but consistent, hard worked progress that you need to stick to. Some people give up, or a lot of people give up because they don't really know what they're doing. They haven't got that support.
[00:08:37] And it's easier just to give up. There are some in betweens. So it's not that everyone either gives up or everyone's smashing it. So some people have done it themselves. They don't give up, but they give up trying to make it better. So that's, that's probably akin to someone going to the gym. They don't give up going to the gym. They still go to the gym, but their workouts are missing something. You know, instead of giving it 100%, maybe they're giving it 60%. They're just showing up, they're looking at their phone while they're working out. We all see those people at the gym. So there's some people that have some kind of success but nowhere near the success success that is is potentially available to them. So hopefully this makes sense, guys. So you could be in any one of those circumstances. If you're watching this, even if you've implemented profit first and you're happy with the progress you're getting, if you're completely smashing it. Had a conversation with some other profit first professionals this morning. If you think you're absolutely smashing it all the time, something's not right. Think about going to the gym. You need to be pushing yourself to the limits. If you're always lifting the weights and they're within your comfort zone, you're like, look at me, this is easy, something's missing. You need to be pushing yourself and that's the problem. We get too, too comfortable. So hopefully that's useful. Guys, give me a shout out if you've got any questions. Thanks, everyone, have a great week.
