Title: “Unpacking the Profit First Approach with Jason Marks”
Episode: 195
This week’s episode will save your business and will give you hope to start with your life!
The guest for this episode of Profit First for REI podcast is Jason Marks. He has been in the business for 12 years and has run different companies. One of these is a wholesale company.
Listen as he shares his experiences on how he started making money and increased profitability through Profit First.
He also tells about the stress of the taxes and how Profit First saved his life! Enjoy the show!
Key Takeaways:
[00:59] Introducing Jason Marks
[04:05] Jason’s craziness before Profit First
[09:29] How goal setting helped him in his investing journey
[15:08] First hire in his business
[16:33] Importance of delegating
[23:19] Jason’s tough times
[28:51] Making decisions based on your bank account and your goals
[34:05] Advice to first-time investors
[38:12] Contact us!
Quotes:
[13:26] “It’s very important that you have to know what you want because you also have to get ready if you don’t get it.”
[17:29] “If you’re not good at it and don’t like it, you should not be doing it.”
[28:51] “To run a successful business, you need to make decisions based on your bank account and your goals.”
Connect with Jason:
Website: https://simplecfo.com/
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
It’s been a challenge running both, but implementing Profit First has me talking to you in a very calm still manner as opposed to last year when there’s going on all the time wondering about this, how to implement this, how are we going to pay for this? So the short and the skinny is logistics. Real estate a year ago was super crazy. Trajectory right now is way more where it needed to be for a long time.
Speaker 2:
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for r e I podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
Speaker 3:
Today we have a very special guest, Jason Marks. He’s someone that we work with at Simple C F O and he tells his story about being in business for 12 years. He ran a couple different companies, one of them a wholesale company and literally telling about how the stress of the taxes, that type of stuff and versus how this process has literally saved their lives. He says that in this episode. I want you to feel that because he talks about a lot of things that people don’t talk about, but that feel deep inside and I want you to get that hope because of where he was to where he is today, and I want him to share that with you. Please listen to this episode. It could save your business and it could give you hope to start this process if you’ve never started it before. Thank you for being a listener and enjoy this episode. Hey everyone. So here we have Jason Marks. Sarah can’t be here today. I’m going to get her on a podcast in the future. She is camera shy, but Jason and Sarah are incredible investors that we get to work with, but also they fully embrace profit First and that methodology. I know that they’re going to provide a lot of hope to you today and Jason is here with us, really excited to talk about his story. Jason, thanks for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:
Oh, thank you for having me and if hope is what we’re after, hope I will help give.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, well there’s a lot of people out there that I feel like don’t have hope and that’s where I hope that this podcast gives that breath of fresh air. But Jason, why don’t you give a brief background like what you’ve done, where you are, because then we’re going to talk about what did life look like before and after and the trajectory you’re on now and give people some of that hope. But Jason, tell them a little bit where you are.
Speaker 1:
Let’s see. We started in logistics about 12 years ago. We’re still in it. We started making some good money. It was time to start investing. I found wholesaling, which in the trucking business is essentially the same thing. We’re middlemen and so we jumped into starting a real estate company. So now we have these two businesses. We’ve done really good with the real estate. We were not as good with profit. The idea is to make money, but we just started spending more and doing more and the freedom we were supposed to have, we didn’t have. And it’s been a challenge running both, but implementing Profit First has me talking to you in a very calm still manner as opposed to last year when they’re going on all the time wondering about this, how to implement this, how are we going to pay for this? So the short and the skinny is logistics. Real estate a year ago was super crazy way. Trajectory right now is way more where it needed to be for a long time.
Speaker 3:
Well now I’ve got to, for the listener’s sake and for my sake and everyone here, what’s dive into craziness. What does craziness look like or what did it feel like at that time before Profit First? You said, oh the questions and stuff, but can you give me some examples? Did you start wholesaling a year ago or was it longer than that? When did you actually start the real estate side?
Speaker 1:
So the real estate side started about four years ago when we wanted to start buying rentals. I knew that going on the m l s couldn’t be the only way. So I’m researching how to find creative deals. I find wholesaling. So we just jumped in my real estate mentor, his audio and video guide did wholesaling. So he put us in touch. We partner partnered on a deal, bought 20 acres of land or we got 20 acres of land under contract. We sold it, made 54 grand and split it. Nice. So the proof of concept happened immediately. Awesome. And so we just started tax delinquent list, handwritten letters we’ve been going ever since.
Speaker 3:
So then let me ask real quick though, do you think that the trucking and logistics side helped you get a faster start in the real estate side? You had proof of concept pretty fast it seems like on the real estate.
Speaker 1:
Yes and yes it did. Mostly because I learned about goal setting a long time ago. Yeah, goal setting helped us grow the trucking business very well. But what happened in that is the idea of oh my god, we can do it so we can do that. We can do anything. So when wholesaling started, there was a change from do we do wholesale deals or do we start a company? So it was why not start a company because we know how and not having profit first in either company, we were just as irresponsible with our money as we were in the trucking company. So the financial freedom that we’re all after, I had no idea how we were going to find that freedom because answering your question of what does craziness look like, there’s enough responsibility just with one company double that up with the same unorganization equals crazy.
Speaker 3:
Okay. So then man, there’s so many questions I want to ask. I’ll try to be as clear as possible. So what do you think contributed to, you’ve been in the trucking logistics for like 12 years you said, right? That side of the, so then real estate for the last four. Why do you think that you didn’t have the clarity on the finances or didn’t attain that freedom because it was open for so long?
Speaker 1:
Two reasons. Number one is taxes. With the logistics company, there’s not much overhead. We don’t actually own trucks, so all we did was pretty much produce revenue and profit. So when you’re earning,
Speaker 3:
So that’s how it’s like wholesale because you’re the middleman, so there’s not a lot of, you don’t own the trucks and stuff. You’re basically just buying. Okay,
Speaker 1:
And then we have a huge tax bill at the end of the year, which we can’t do anything about. There’s also no depreciation or write off if the company doesn’t own assets. But even after paying the tax bill and then looking at our W nine, seeing what we brought in and then the bank account, we just couldn’t ever get a grasp on if it shows we made 800 or a million and we paid one 50 or two, where’s the rest? The answer is all just a fun machinery or stuff that we would do for ourselves, but it still shouldn’t have been that way real estate, it was we’re earning more, now we can market more. Let’s increase marketing, let’s increase this. But at the end of the year, where’s our money? And that literally is where implementing profit first snap of a finger turns it all around. It’s not even stuff that you shouldn’t just kind of know on your own. I feel like deep down we know those things, but we’re still left with those questions and we’ll get into that hopefully why the implementation and how the implementation worked. Not just that we needed to do it, but how it came about.
Speaker 3:
We’ll definitely talk about that. I’m not letting you off the podcast without us talking about the how and the why for sure. But I love that what you said there is because I think a lot of people go through that right where they start to make some money, oh, taxes, oh shoot, and then it’s like then in real estate, I don’t know if you have ever been in real estate, that probably resonates with you. I earned more so I market more and then you’re left at the end of the year saying where is our money? So I think that resonates with a lot of people, especially the real estate world. I have one more question before we go into the how and why a profit first because I know you are big on this. I’ve heard you speak on this a lot, the goal setting, how did that help you with the trucking company? Because, because there was a key piece that if a listener’s on this podcast listening, their first business might be real estate, but how did you learn that goal setting or what helped on that on the trucking side specifically, so that way it gave you more confidence to start the real estate investing business?
Speaker 1:
I want to try to keep this as short and simple as possible. I can talk about this for hours
Speaker 3:
Ad naum, right?
Speaker 1:
I still have a phenomenal business mentor that I met a long time ago. He got me a subscription to Success magazine, nothing to do with the pages in the magazine, but everything to do with the D V D that came inside and Darren Hardy was the editor. He would interview people every month. So he got me this subscription so that I can turn off the music in my car, start listening to business leaders and interviews. First one that I listened to was Darren Hardy and Brian Tracy talked about goal setting and the exercise was to write down your top 10 goals every single day, 30 days in a row, and you’re not allowed to look at the day before when you’re writing the current day.
So in trucking, so I bartended when I found the trucking industry and instead of quitting my job, I felt like if I can talk to some of these bar customers, maybe someone works in manufacturing, maybe I can just drum a business where I’m working for this new endeavor. In order to quit bartending, I had to figure out how much am I making? So how much do I need to start making here that I can then quit? So as simple as the two ways of looking at it, we won’t go into the psychology, but the psychology of how writing your goals down frequently supercharges your subconscious mind was the most intriguing subject. So while I won’t go into it, I would suggest everyone and anyone that listens to this to do that research because it’s magical. But number two is if you look at it like a roadmap, you have to start with the end in mind so we know where we want it to go.
I had to subsidize making $600 a week, which is what I was making bartending. So I knew if I set a goal to make 600 bucks, it was going to require X amount of customers in order to require a customer. It was X amount of phone calls and then it turned from how is this going to happen to now? I have a plan, I have a goal. So while I’m working the plan, customers start coming, revenue starts coming. Now I’m making a thousand dollars a week at trucking. I don’t need bartending anymore. So the quitting, anyone who’s ever been in any kind of service industry, when you’re young, you don’t really know how you’re going to get out. So the day that I was able to quit was a great day, but now I have that confidence and that momentum. Then it turned into what’s everyone else at the company that I was working for doing, who are the big guys Now my sites are set on how do I catch them? And you just fast forward to today we have our whole own business doing our whole own thing and we still utilize goal setting and everything today. So going into real estate, we were blindsided. It was supposed to be to buy rentals,
But I found wholesaling, I can middleman trucks now I can middleman houses, I can also help people. We’re not even talking about being able to service others and their issues. That makes it all worth it. But yeah, goal setting taught me that you just have to have a plan and you have to, it’s painstaking sometimes. You have to do the research. You need to be still and present with yourself. It requires turning the phone off, having a notebook and a pen and being vulnerable because I think someone or maybe a lot of people say that we define success, it’s hard to define success because in doing so you also define failure. So it’s very important that you have to know what you want. You’re also going to get ready to know if you don’t get it, and I think a lot of people stumble right there. So
Speaker 3:
No, that’s really good. So then goal setting, it sounds like it really helped you in the logistics business and then it translated into the real estate. What I hear there though is intentionality is that you’d had the goals, but it was the plan and it was the process that you went through of I’m being intentional with the business and how I build it of even then you were able to reverse engineer the numbers. That’s what I’m hearing. That’s
Speaker 1:
Exactly right.
Speaker 3:
Then in wholesaling probably you probably took that same mindset and said, okay, how many deals do I need to do or to get to where we want to be? And that’s where it’s like a lot of people can be really good at the acquiring of the properties or the wholesaling or the logistics side, but it sounds like you were still missing a key piece and the keep side of the like, okay, we’re getting a lot of these dollars in, but now these taxes are killing me or this other side. So at those points in time you had not learned anything about the financial side up to that point of keeping more of the money.
Speaker 1:
Correct. I also didn’t know about delegating as much as I should have.
Speaker 3:
So the finances and that’s on the operational side, how do I delegate this to other people? So this whole time, okay, when was the first time you hired someone on your team? Did you hire someone a while ago and then you just didn’t know how to delegate to them or did you not hire someone until more recently?
Speaker 1:
No, technically our first hire was our mother. When my mother-in-law, she didn’t go through a process. It was kind of like we just needed help. She had nothing to do. But our first official official hire was probably middle of last year or our first acquisitions person. That’s when we went to,
Speaker 3:
So you didn’t have someone helping you in the trucking business for a lot time or the logistics and then real estate. It was just within the last year. So were you and Sarah doing this and then maybe your mother-in-law help it with some of the other stuff for a long time,
Speaker 1:
And I should clarify, so the trucking team, we do have a bunch of people hiring. They were all people that I knew who just didn’t see it in themselves, but I knew that they would be good at it, so I forced ’em to come in. It’s a little bit different than a hire, but in real estate is where I needed most of the help. I’m very hands-on in trucking, I love it so much. But real estate, we were doing it on the weekends and at nights we would have a printed letter, but we would hand write the envelopes and if we’re only putting out 50 a week and I wanted to put out 500 a week, we need hands. So that’s where we reached out. So it wasn’t even so much delegating, it was more just assistance. But as I got older and smarter and I met a lot of people in the collective genius, then I took a program called Insane Productivity by Darren Hardy who I mentioned, and that’s what I really learned, the delegating and why it was so important.
And the quick synopsis is like I use the heart surgeon is a great example. So if you ask a heart surgeon how many minutes a day he actually works, it’s going to just be minutes. But if you’re the patient, you’re paying a lot of money for this specific person, you’re in there for hours, you’re still going to tell everybody that this doctors who did your procedure. But the fact of the matter is this doctor has an entire team getting your gauze ready, making the incisions, the surgeon’s going to come in when it’s his time to shine at what he does best. He doesn’t need to be booking rooms, he doesn’t need to be calling and making sure that you’re going to come in for your appointment. So if all of us can understand that, we all have our superpower, figure out what that is. If you are not good at it and you don’t like doing it, you should not be doing it and I don’t want to hear that you can’t afford it and I don’t want to hear that you don’t have time. Both false
Speaker 3:
Now that’s great stuff. I feel like that ties into this. Did you have the skills for the financial side?
Speaker 1:
I’m cool saying no, only because it was so I knew a spreadsheet is never going to give me energy and it’s also where I will tell everybody in a weird way, I would say that you saved our lives, not even buttering you up on your podcast. Real life is we would still be in that unorganized state had we not first found out that you existed. B understood delegating and we would be trying to do a horrible job on our own where now I’m not going to spend the time, I don’t need to spend the time and I don’t care if we couldn’t afford it, I would still figure out how to make it work because it’s such an important part of your business.
Speaker 3:
Okay, we got to dig into that a little bit. When you say saved your life, what did life look like then? It could be logistics or the real estate before we met and before you got profit first implemented. Can you go into a little bit of maybe even the feelings you were having with money at those points in time? Because that’s a very bold statement and I did not pay Jason to say that here. So
Speaker 1:
If you’re realistic
Speaker 3:
To that, he just said that because that’s where a lot of people feel. I see that a lot. That’s why I even started what I did. The very, very first client said that to me, to my face, this has saved my life and my family, but I know his story. But I’d like you to share that part if you’re willing to, because a lot of people might be feeling it but just not talking about it. So if you’re willing to share,
Speaker 1:
Okay, so four years ago we were making a ton of money in trucking and we started wholesaling at some of the best wholesaling times. So revenue was never a problem. So you kind of have this thought process that it’s going to be like this forever. We can have $250,000 months just in real estate. We would average maybe one to 180 in trucking and it’s like who cares about the tax bill? There’s all this money in the bank account, we pay it. But then time goes by and you learn about cycles in real life and all of a sudden things dry up a little bit. Deals don’t come in as fast. Well if you’re not allocating your money for the appropriate, first of all, we’re just talking taxes, let alone what about profit for yourself? If you’re not allocating those things and you’re not paying attention, they can dry up. So life for us back then was who cares? We’re making so much, we’ll cover it. If we didn’t have that now or if we were still running that way now we might not have our company anymore.
Speaker 3:
Wow.
Speaker 1:
Because taxes come deals slow down, everything’s picking back up now. Thank you. But for those nine months it wasn’t as exciting. Why is there 60,000 in our bank account when I’m used to it being multiple triple digits? Where does it go? Well, it goes to whatever irresponsible you. We can have fun. Our acs always going to be fixed. I’m always going to have a good John Deere to mow all of our properties, but do you need ’em? Can you technically afford it? And in our world now, you can only afford it after everything else is taken care of and then there’s enough disposable in your owner’s comp account to cover as opposed to, Hey, there’s 300 in there, this costs seven grand. Just go ahead and buy it. Just very irresponsible for sure.
Speaker 3:
Can I ask a personal question? Did this ever affect home life before you implemented this stuff or were you guys on the same page? Because I’ve heard it both ways. Yes and no. So there’s no wrong answer here.
Speaker 1:
No. I think now when you say this affected home life,
Speaker 3:
Not keeping the money as much or seeing the tax bill or the counts getting lower, but not having anything employees.
Speaker 1:
So it’s hard. I’m going to say yes and no. Right? Okay. So my wife and I, as you’ve seen, it’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m sure she would say the same and we communicate very good. We understand. So when either one of us is in that mood, the other one’s there to support, not get angry, but yeah, have we shared anxiousness together? A hundred percent. If one of us is anxious and the other one’s not, it’s usually it could have been about the finances. So we’ve never gotten in any down places or been fighting, but we’re also both very happy. We understand that life is short, we like helping people. So generally we’re just going to be happy and bubbly all the time. So there’s definitely a few months where I was stressed, Jason that no one has ever seen before. So I would definitely say that it affected that. But like I said, if it wasn’t for starting, who knows where we would be.
Speaker 3:
So let me ask this. During those times of stress or whatever, did you ever think about throwing in the towel? Have you ever thought about No, this just isn’t worth it either on the logistics side or the real estate side?
Speaker 1:
Both. Oh yeah, probably not both, but having to make a decision if it’s too much for us, which one would make more sense to go hard? I started, I’m sure people have said this in the past, so when I say that I coined this, I don’t actually mean it, but my new coin line was that you can’t half-ass two different things. You have to hold S one and I’m here trying to do both without the right people in the right seats and it was driving me crazy because the phone would never stop. I’m getting home late, I have to be back up early. There’s just always a ton of stuff to do. You throw the possibility of fearing that you might not be able to cover your tax bill on top of all that. It’s not a fun place to be.
Speaker 3:
Would you say then during those times, how long ago was that specific time there where you’re getting up early, going to bed late going to thing and maybe this isn’t going to even cover the tax bill?
Speaker 1:
How ago was that? I’d say within the last 18 months. 18 months ago was probably the height of it and I would say that maybe four months ago was where it was all the way completed and I was back to
Speaker 3:
Breathing again. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. We’ll talk about that for sure. But would you say that 18 months ago then would probably be one of the lowest times in the business, if not the lowest time of just everything coming together?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, lowest time for my brain.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. Okay. It does give tough sometimes. So four months ago was when you finally started to feel that, but talk about that journey. When did you say Enough is enough or what got you turned on to what we were doing or profit first or that, where did that come into your life?
Speaker 1:
So this is where I would give all the credit to the Collective Genius. We’re part of the collective genius, their select group and May of last year was my first meeting and I met you. We got blown away by the vendors and the people that we met and we knew that we needed marketing. We found our marketing people in Jason Lewis and Investor Machine, AB Bateman and Bateman Collective Brewer Method. I was infatuated to find out you can put deals on the M L Ss in the right way, but then the profit first was, whoa, maybe we can get some clarity in organization to these bank accounts. So much so that it’s been such a help with the real estate company that our C F O Eck who’s been the other life changer. We just hired her to be our C F O with our logistics company.
So now we’re simple C F Oing two times, but it’s not like you don’t just start day one and everything is organized. Day one is like, oh my goodness, we have to go in and go back and get all this stuff organized and as much as it’s not my role, and as much as I didn’t want to do it, it was so important that I was able to suck it up because we had to. And Sarah again, she’s our finance person with real estate for sure. Or the budget police as well. So she has been imperative in helping get those things completed. Awesome.
Speaker 3:
I remember that’s why I was like I wanted her to come on it. I remember what she said at collective G is the last time it sounded like she’s been invested a lot in this process as well too. So I will get her on her at some point. I am going to make her face this fear,
Speaker 1:
But we’ll trick her. We’ll tell Rick we have a zoom about something else and it’ll be this
Speaker 3:
And I will lose trust with her forever. So there you go.
Speaker 1:
That’s great. Somehow.
Speaker 3:
No, she would
Speaker 1:
Do good if the pressure wasn’t, you’d do
Speaker 3:
Great. Exactly. She would. She’s a great speaker. But that’s where I want to talk about too. Okay. What did you ever think about before that, before May of last year that you’d ever have a CFO on your team, a chief financial officer?
Speaker 1:
Probably not. I want to lie to you and be like, yeah, of course it’s an important role. We would’ve had it eventually, but
Speaker 3:
Everyone says no, so don’t usually for bigger businesses, that’s what people think. Something like that. Then let’s talk about that process because 18 months ago in the thick of it, end of 2021, you meet me, may 20 of 22, you get started. When did it start feeling better? You said four months ago felt like the biggest sigh of relief, but talk about along that journey when you started it, obviously you’re cleaning stuff up, but when did you start to get some of the clarity or some of the financial of okay, we’re putting things wherever they should go and that type of thing?
Speaker 1:
So first of all, day one is when it started to feel better because I found out that there’s somebody out there with a program that can actually help the first couple months knowing it’s going to be good, but still having to go through numbers, spreadsheets, bank accounts, and what I’m about to say is still a work in progress that we still work on every single other week with Mahe. But I think you just alluded to, we started to understand it’s not even just to keep yourself organized. It’s that to run a successful business you have to make decisions that are based on your bank account and your goals. So if investor machine, if we’re spending this money and we’re not getting a return, you’ve got to be able to know to cut it off if it’s not working for your market, same as Stateman and having somebody who’s helping us build our spreadsheets, build our K P I sheets, because again, we can input numbers on ’em, but how do you build them?
I see people with rental calculators on Instagram as I’m scrolling and I’m always like, man, I wonder how they created that thing. So having that getting done is cool, but we’re making decisions based off of numbers. We didn’t do that ever in either business and turning off a lever that’s just not producing, you don’t really know. You can actually think that something is working until you see it’s raw real numbers. So that’s also why it’s just so important to have that clarity. I would argue that certain counties were doing great. It’s like you’ve done three deals and made 26 grand total over 13 months. And I’m like, why was I thinking that it was so good? Well, emotion is one thing and logical and or data is another. It’s just been helping us make decisions how we need it to based
Speaker 3:
On based the actual numbers. Well, that goes back to would you say that’s intentionality? That’s like the goal setting what you said there. It’s like now you’re intentional in those decisions. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1:
A hundred percent and not even knowing what to be intentional about for how can you run a business and not understand you have to make decisions based off money. I don’t know, but we were doing fine at it. Now that we know it’s way better.
Speaker 3:
Well then let me ask this. Did you open a tax account and do you have money that’s being put away for taxes?
Speaker 1:
So short answer, yes, humorous answer would be come on. You know that we are in your program.
Speaker 3:
Yes. But I want them to know too though, because that was a big thing. That was definitely especially the logistics side you said, but it’s like now what happened four months ago? You said four months, that was obviously there was something that happened four months that, was that the taxes or was that something else that contributed to that? What was the crystal clear four months ago?
Speaker 1:
Four months ago was about the time that all the work that we’ve been putting in finally started to show all of its fruit
Speaker 3:
Where
Speaker 1:
We’re paying taxes quarterly. We cut off a couple marketing channels we had, I have a new personal assistant instead of just an assistant for the company. So it’s like implementation knowledge and then execution. So we were in the execution. We were in the beginning stages of the execution phase finally, and then it all just started to be not as crazy every day. We started to have a really good idea of not just where we’re going, but how do I word this one? We’ve always known what direction that we’ve wanted to go, but implementing these things, it’s maybe it’s like putting in the better version of oil for your car that it drives more efficiently, something like that. We were using a horrible oil before and now we’re using your oil. So the first couple oil changes, the car was still rough, where now the car got used to this new good oil. So it’s running smooth. That’s probably, that’s a really
Speaker 3:
Good
Speaker 1:
Analogy
Speaker 3:
Because of what you said too. Saving your life is not a small thing to say. So it’s almost like the oil, it’s almost the wrong brand or the wrong thing for that car where a couple more things. If the market went the wrong way and if you weren’t doing these potentially all the money’s gone and then you’re like, what in the world happened?
Speaker 1:
And then do you blame it on yourself? Do you blame it on the car? You have to also be able to
Speaker 3:
Vehicle stuff
Speaker 1:
In the mirror.
Speaker 3:
Is it real estate or is it the vehicle or is it the person driving the vehicle? Oh no, that’s a really good Now this has been awesome. This has been awesome because this is where I believe a lot of people feel like this. They’re just, they’re going out there, they’re getting the deals, they’re getting ’em under contract, they’re actually selling them. The market’s great. We don’t have to worry about anything. What you even said a few like, Hey, we were just running and gunning and if we were making money, we’re fine. But then it’s like when it stops, what do you do if you have a dry spell? So this has been awesome. There’s been so much good things on here. I want to just ask a couple final questions. First, final question is if someone were looking to get started with Profit first, how would you advise them, especially in the real estate arena, since this is for real estate investors?
Speaker 1:
Well, so you’re one of the few awesome vendors who you’re not an owner that nobody can get in touch with. Most events that I go to, I’m going to see you there and be able to shake your hand. If we shoot an email to you, you answer. So I would tell anybody to probably just reach out to you first If you’re on vacation, I’m going to put them in touch with my C F O in order to get you. But I would just say do it. Don’t think about it. It’s the most important part of your business. Number one, people will argue that revenue is first, which is probably true. So I would say that revenue plus organizing your funds equal weight.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I agree with that. If you’re going to do the work to bust your butt to get the deals in the door, you might as well keep the money that you’re getting in the door as well too. So that’s great. I appreciate that. I also did not pay Jason to say that too, but it’s like if you need help implementing, we could definitely help. But I want to also ask you one last thing too is you’ve dropped a lot of knowledge here. Do you need help with anything? Do you need private lending connections or do you want to connect with people on Facebook or Instagram or anything like that? Because if someone wants to get in touch with you and you need any help, how would they get in touch with you or follow you? I know you’re on Instagram, you’ve got a couple of those outlets. Is there any way that our listeners could potentially provide value back
Speaker 1:
So they will be able to? I would say right now, as far as real estate’s going, we’re working really hard at our processes and our SOPs and everything. We have enough of the information. It’s right now we’re just, we’re implementing it slowly and correctly. Once all that’s done and we’re to where we should be is when I’m going to start needing the help. So the exciting part is I’m not sure what help we’re going to need just yet. Right now, we just need more time to go by so that all the things that we’re doing can be completed. We also learned that rushing forcing is not good. So anyone can follow me or find me, but if I can leave, one really important message to anyone who’s thinking about this is that there’s two feelings in business and when you make your money, right, there’s all those wins and accomplishments, but then there’s always tax time. And I will tell you, the feeling of worrying about your taxes weighs more than any big win. So if you understand that I would much rather have all singles and no doubles, triples or home runs than have all home runs, but then worry about Uncle Sam
Speaker 3:
Or striking out or losing the game. Ultimately,
Speaker 1:
Yeah, there’s no stress being kicked out. Yeah, there’s no stress in having a walk or getting hit by a pitch or hitting a single, but there’s a lot of pain if you’re looking at Uncle Sam in the eyes. So take care of that first, and that’s the biggest lesson that we’ve learned. Those two feelings, one makes life a lot easier. What is a book? Eat That Frog, eat this Frog. Everything else falls into place as it should if you’re calm and happy and can focus. Awesome.
Speaker 3:
That is great advice because it is then, this is why we exist because so many people have this problem, but just don’t talk about it. That’s why we’re talking about it. That’s why Jason opened up today and told the stressful situations of up late, working early and then wondering, is this all not going to be worth it? I don’t, can’t pay Uncle Sam. You don’t have to feel that way. You don’t have to make money and feel broke. So if that’s you and you resonate with this at all, you could reach out to us@simplecfo.com. We would love to help you, even if we’re just pointing you in the right direction. But get on a call with our team. We want to help you get out of that rat race. Don’t be in the real estate rat race. Don’t be living deal to deal. Don’t do that to yourself. We want to help you just like we helped Jason and Jason, I want to say again, thank you for coming on, but then also being open. Being open and sharing and helping people have that hope.
Speaker 1:
And if you’re having an issue, being honest with yourself, call me. We can have a conversation. I’ll help you get it out of yourself and on the right trajectory.
Speaker 3:
Awesome. Well, there you go. This has been great. Remember, if you’re listening, make Profit a Habit. And Jason, thank you again for being on the show.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for having me more than it’s my pleasure.
Speaker 2:
This episode of The Profit First for R e I podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call@simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on The Profit First for r e I podcast with David Richter.
