Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Excuses. Here I am. So.
[00:00:05] Hi, guys. Stephen Edwards from Grow Profit first and welcome to the Profit first podcast. So if you've heard me before, I talk about all things profit first. I'm a certified Profit first professional in the uk. Although we can help people all around the world ultimately, because we're talking about numbers and improving your profit and your cash flow. But we're based in the UK and we're certified in the Profit first system. But we also talk about anything that's going to help you build a better business. And ultimately to build a better business, we need to make more profit. And profit shouldn't be this kind of corporate evil term, this evil word. It's not something you should shy away from because there's a lot of psychology behind this in terms of money mindset, abundance. If you hear me talk about the word profit and it feels a little bit kind of gooey or, you know, it doesn't feel right for you, you're not, I'm not driven by profit. So many good things for you, for your team, for your family, for your customers, for your suppliers can happen if you make more profit. So profit is key to everything in your business. And ultimately, what is money? What is profit? To make money, to make profit, there's a value exchange. We can't just receive money. Money is just a piece of paper or it's a number in a bank account. The true money is an exchange of if you're making more profit. I think this is an important thing to, to realize you are given more value. The people out there earning more money, and it's not always black and white, it's not 100% always the case, but generally speaking, you know, a kind of universal rule of nature. The more value gonna be given to people, the more money you will make. If you look at, we can apply lots of examples if we look at doctors, although people can argue they're, they're underpaid for what they do, they are paid a relatively lot of money compared to the normal person up the road because they provide a lot of value. The heart surgeons are paid more than anyone else because they are providing the ultimate value. They're saving people's, people's lives. If you look at actors, sports stars, you know, celebrities, ultimately they are providing value. They're providing value in the form of entertainment. If you look at sports stars, actors, musicians, they're enabling normal people like you and I to, to get lost our mind, to go somewhere else, to kind of escape reality. And that's providing value in the form of entertainment. So, sorry, I went on for a bit of a spiel there, but that's actually deep. You know, that's something.
[00:02:37] It's really important to me and it's one of my values. But today I want to talk about a topic that enabled me to be on. I don't know how big the screen was. It was pretty BIG in the ICC in Birmingham at the recent Entrepreneurs Convention 2025, hosted by the entrepreneur Cir and Nigel Botterill. And they shared a snippet of a video I sent to Nigel, who's been running the EC since it began. Really successful, amazing person. And there was. There was a story and I think I'll share the story for you and apologize if you're. If you're from the EC and you've been to the convention and you've already heard this, but I was in one of Nigel's Mastermind groups in 2024 and for different reasons, because I have quite a lot of things I'm focusing on. Focusing on a lot of things on the go for different. For different reasons. I didn't continue it for 2025 because I had quite a lot I needed to focus on. And I'll get back to that word in a minute. Focus. So anyway, I was on holiday this summer, took three. I took a month out of the business, but I actually took three weeks of that in Florida. And we're into our last week and we decided to go to Epcot in Disney and to. To watch the fireworks. And the fireworks are at 9 o' clock in the evening and it's all dark and they've got. If you're familiar with Epcot, you can walk around the world. You've got all these different countries, not every country in the world, but the main ones you expect. And I'm in Mexico and it's fairly towards the front, the entrance, as you walk in, I'm in Mexico, I'm buying myself a couple of margaritas and two lagers. And I'm sat there and I took. Well, not sat there. I'm stood there waiting for my drinks. I've already paid and I turn around and there's a familiar face, or I think it's a familiar face, but I wasn't quite sure. And then I'm like, no, it definitely is. It's Nigel, the guy who runs the entrepreneur circle. And I know him personally because, as I said, I've been in the EC for a few years and I was in his Mastermind group last year where his inner circle group, more specifically And I shouted, nige, Nige. And I went and had a chat. We were both with our families, it wasn't for very long and we just talked. And I can be a little bit of a deep think and I was questioning what does this mean? You know, what does this mean? The other side of the world at that time with thousands of people I bump into. Nigel was quite an influential, inspiring person. And then I'm like, I was meaning to thank him because the inner circle last year, the group I was in, and it's a mastermind. And for those familiar with masterminds, I've talked about it before, I'm starting my own in 2026, but that's not what I'm talking about today. It can be a great way of like minded business owners getting together, banging heads together, normally facilitated by someone like Nigel or whoever's running the group. And anyway, so I sent him an email and, and, and a video on the email and I basically said I just need to thank you because there's so much happened in 2024 and I had so many things on the go. I trained as an eos, entrepreneurial operating system implementer. I trained as a cert coach. If you listen to this thinking, what's this got to do with profit? First Steve, I will bring it back to making you more money in your business and moving you forward in your life in a second. But I've done all these things and you know what, it does link back straight away because I've had the freedom to do these things because I make enough space for myself, time wise and money wise to do the things I want to do anyway. So I had so much stuff on the go and then one time when I was kind of asking permission to or to be told off, Steve, you're doing too much. Nigel said to me at the end of one of our sessions, there's a room full of about 12 people. Steve, the truth is you will probably be successful at whatever you focus on. And it's such a small kind of expression, you know, sentence that it just kind of went over my head. And what I found in the following weeks and months is it kept on replaying. And that's the power of coaching. Being around people, being in rooms. It kept on replaying in my head what am I focusing on? So if you're watching this or listening to this before I dive into how that's impacted me, what are you focusing on? If you cannot answer that question, then you're not going to probably get to where you need to Go. You probably don't know where you're going, but this is actually one of the powers with Profit first. If you're focusing on your profit, if you're focusing on getting to a certain number, a certain destination, the chances of you getting that, I promise you, they're 10x at least 10x. So at the beginning of the year, I shared this previously. I said, how to make 2025 your most profitable ever. And my theme for the year was less is more. I have followed that to the tee. I'm the sort of person that has a hundred ideas a week. I'm sure as a business owner listening or watching this, you're probably the same. But I've had to narrow it, narrow my focus. What are the core things I'm focusing on? And Profit first could have the same impact. Is it going to help me, drive me towards where I need to go? And it doesn't mean you might be thinking, steve, it's not just about money. I 100 get that. Because to focus on your profit, you need to build. You might need to build an amazing team, you might need to build amazing relationships. I get all that. But you need to be focused on what is the main thing. It might be driving the relationships that's going to then drive the customers and drive the revenue that's going to drive the profit. It might be retention within your team. You might have problems and challenges with your team. You've probably got one to three things, main things that you should be focusing on. Some of you might have heard of Brian Tracy.
[00:07:58] Eat. Eat the. Eat the frog, I think it's called. And the idea is if you eat the frog, metaphorically in the morning. So the thing you're putting off in your business, the most important thing that you're probably putting off, the hardest thing to do, everything else becomes easier. I don't just apply this to daily thinking. I apply this to the year, to the quarter.
[00:08:16] What are the most important things for you? We're about to finish 2025, we're in the last quarter. What are you focusing on now to finish the year strong, to go into 2026. And I want you to start thinking about how you can prioritize and focus the things that can make a bigger difference to your business in terms of your profits. Because I've said at the beginning, and I'll bring it full circle, everything comes back to your profit. Because if you've got more profit, you can have more money, freedom, more time freedom, more freedom of purpose, more relationship freedom. You can choose the customers you work with. You can be more picky with who you hire in your team and just give you so much freedom in your life in general. Hopefully that makes sense. Is the keyword less is more. And what I'm looking to do is to give you a little bit of focus for the last quarter of 2025. If you want to chat about profit first and what does that look like for your business? We are having the best year we've ever had because we've done the things I said I was going to do it at the, at the beginning of the year. I'm also excited to announce that the Grow Academy is about to go live before the end of the year. I'm working on the content and working on the materials. If you're a client of ours, a client of Grow Profit first or you might have known us previously, a cta, we used to be Cheltenham tax accountants back in the day. We are introducing a nine step Profit first system to implement profit first in your business to essentially increase your cash, increase your profit and then you can do the other things I've, I've talked about. So that's going to be available to our clients, which I'll share that with you and if you'd like to learn more, just reach out. Thanks, guys. Speak to you soon. Excuses.
[00:09:56] So.
