“The Profit Puzzle_ Putting Together the Pieces for Financial Success”

Fierce Females in Franchising

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All righty. Hello everybody. Welcome to my podcast today, and [00:01:00] I'm so excited to introduce Olivia. And the first thing I would like to do is I want to read her bio for you because I wanna make sure she gets all the credit she is due. So Olivia. Has over 22 years of experience as a small business owner and profitability specialist.

The reason she is here, and she is also a huge fan of the book Profit First by Michael Malowitz. She is the go-to gal for all things profitability. She is passionate about helping fellow small business owners achieve their financial goals, and she loves nothing more than driving into spreadsheets to figure out how to make it happen.

I don't understand that, Olivia, but God bless you. We need you. One thing that sets her apart from the rest is that she is very approachable. She is not some stuffy consultant who talks over people's heads, Nope. She is down to earth, easy to talk to and genuinely interested in helping her clients [00:02:00] succeed.

Her customized strategies are tailor made to fit your specific situation, ensuring you get the support you need to achieve sustainable profitability and long-term success. And the best part, she has a proven track record of delivering real measurable results for your clients. If you are ready to improve your business's profitability, she would love to chat with you.

I know she is excited to get to know you and your business and help you achieve your financial goals. Welcome. Thank you very much, Phyllis. Thanks for having me. I am excellent. Excited to be here. Wonderful. All right. So I have to start out by asking you what's up with Agent O? How did that come about? Well, so one of my clients gave me that as a nickname.

So my first name's Olivia and I. I guess the way it started was you know, anything they asked of me, a special project [00:03:00] they wanted to hand off or question they were trying to, to decide, you know, how are we gonna tackle this? You know, for me, I think in spreadsheets, I think I even dream in spreadsheets.

So, you know, I would be like, there's a spreadsheet for that. And so they chuckled and said, you know what? You're like our secret. You're our agent O So it became a running joke. And then when I decided to brand this, I couldn't choose anything but that. Right? So I'm everybody's, you know, small business secret weapon.

I love that. So tell me accounting and numbers is something that's not my gift, right? So I would love to, you know, we all have gifts, right? And absolutely. Yours happens to be numbers, which. God knows we all need them. So tell me, how did you first get into doing this business? Well for most of those 22 years as a business owner, I had a retail store, a high-end luxury store, and I found that you know, much [00:04:00] to the chagrin of my business partner rather than selling.

Our products and services. I was like, so what's your story? How did you get in business? What is it that you do? And then, you know, they were, oh, I have a problem with this employee. Oh, well tell me about it. Or, you know, I need to do this ad campaign. Well bring it in. I'll look at it with you. And I started realizing that I was consulting and helping people with their profitability rather than selling the products I was supposed to sell.

But like you said, we all have gifts, right? And mine is not in. Product retail. . And, but it definitely is in numbers and not just numbers, but helping people be able to see and understand their numbers. Without having to, you know, dive into something they hate, like accounting spreadsheet.

My job. Absolutely. You know, it's interesting, so, so many times I belong to a couple local networking groups here at Mission Viejo, and I am amazed at the number [00:05:00] of people, small business owners that are not a franchise, that don't know their numbers. It it is amazing to me and or they don't write down their goals.

And all of those things. I know in this business that I'm in with my franchising and consulting and coaching, I mean, we know, we know the number of people we have talked to, to be able to find someone who's actually interested and then to talk to that. So, you know, it is, it's a, it's a numbers situation and, and people need to know that.

Let's talk a little bit about his book and how did that segue you into what you're doing today? Well, what I'm doing today came first, but Profit first. The book kind of opened my eyes to understanding that I wasn't going to convert non spreadsheet people into spreadsheet people.

So, you know, like you said, everybody has gifts and. Almost every single business owner I talk to, if [00:06:00] they started the business, they did it because they had a passion. So they had a passion for woodworking. Now they're a carpenter. They had a passion for helping people. Now they run an at home nursing.

Center. You know, most people don't say, I love sales tax reports and QuickBooks and I just can't wait to run a business so I can file those every month, you know, and so my first part of my consulting years was to explain why those things were really important and to help people learn how to do it.

But then after Profit first I realized There was a reason that wasn't as successful, right? Because you aren't going to change those folks. Yeah. So what is great about Profit First is even if you never talk to and hire somebody like myself, you can read that book and understand those principles and apply it to your business because there's no getting around it.

You do have to know your numbers. There is a very real reason [00:07:00] why the SBA still says that one of every two businesses fails in five years. And almost all of that comes down to not putting emphasis on profit. You do have to have it. You are not gonna have it year one. You can if you follow profit first, I should say.

But it is normal for people to experience a couple years without it. But of course you can't do that long term. No. You have to know your numbers at some level. And so I think that's the secret sauce of my passion and the expertise that I have plus incorporating Mikes wisdom from the book.

And saying, okay, now, now it makes sense and there's a sustainable way to help business owners that doesn't require them. To ever become a love of spreadsheets. But I know for myself numbers have been something that I have over the years, I got more and more understanding of why it was important to look at my numbers.

But [00:08:00] I don't think people realize how much anxiety and stress. Happens with them when they don't know the numbers, when they're trying to not look, I'm very much a non looker and I finally hired a bookkeeper. I had to because I drove, I mean, I spent, I can't even tell you how many days I spent preparing to get my taxes done.

And hiring a bookkeeper was, you know, one of the best things I ever did. Cuz that's not my gift. Right? I'd rather have somebody that it's their gift and they love to do it than for me to do it because a hundred percent, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just like anything else. I don't really love to clean my house.

And when I do it, it takes me all day and I don't really have the right tools and I've never been trained. But I like the end result, right? I like a clean house, but if I hire a housekeeper, yes, I have to pay that person some money. But they come in with the right tools. Yep. They come in with the right training and I get that result that I wanted, but it didn't [00:09:00] take me all day.

You know, None of us, I think probably like going to the dentist, but we like the long-term result that we get of having a healthy dental care. Right. Keeping your teeth right. Yes. Right. You know, so there's this short-term pain called I have to go to the dentist. I have to maybe, you know, undergo some pain there and a little bit of anxiety.

Kind of like what you were talking about. And you have to pay them for their expertise, but you like the end result of having teeth that don't hurt and being able to keep them is a good example. Exactly. So that those life lessons that we learn as adults are no different than those business lessons.

You have to hire someone like a bookkeeper if you hate doing your own numbers, because you need to know those, those are important. Yeah, you do. You know, it's interesting in the maid business that's there's a lot of franchise brands that are Yes. Cleaning services. And the reason that they are so successful is because, one, they have repeat customers.

Who doesn't wanna have [00:10:00] reoccurring customers? You don't always have to keep looking for the next one. Right? Actually, their biggest challenges you can only imagine is hiring people, of course, and it's getting them to consider it. But what's interesting about that brand is, and one of the reasons I love franchising and you'll appreciate this, is that they not only give them systems to be able to know how to clean the house.

Quickly and efficiently and get it all done. Some of them do a rotation where they do certain things each week, but the other thing that they do, which is really key, is they have incentive programs. So someone comes in and they have an escalation of, they start out as just a housekeeper and then they graduate to being maybe, you know, a team leader.

And so they have ways for them to elevate themselves. You know, I remember years ago cleaning authority. One of his things was they would all meet like at a. Industrial park, you know, where they have those offices in front [00:11:00] and warehouse in the back. And that would be an office for a typical made franchise business.

And because they don't have people that drop by, it's really just. Get the team going and so forth. But like he put in a kitchen, so he would have se send 'em off with a hot breakfast. Thanks. Well, you know, thanks. Those little things that they do that make a huge difference in whether somebody is gonna stay or not.

Having been a business owner myself, several different ways but we just treated our employees like family because if you treat 'em like family, they're not gonna go anywhere. They're gonna wanna stay if you appreciate them and do all of that. Absolutely. Yeah. And that that trajectory of first hiring somebody and then giving them milestones that is something that independent businesses can benefit from, but they struggle with how to structure that. And that is definitely one of the benefits that a franchise brings is some of that group knowledge. [00:12:00] And saying, Hey, this is what's worked. In a lot of different places and, and giving you those ready made steps along the way. Yeah. Absolutely. So tell me about the dashboard. How did you get into doing the dashboards? How did that evolve? Well, in some way, form or fashion, I've always used data. So it's not just reconciling your bank account and getting ready for tax season. But for me, the. The rest of your numbers, they do tell a story and it's actually a little too late if you're waiting to look at your numbers for when it's time to file taxes.

You know, for a lot of business owners, a whole year's gone by. Whereas if they are looking at their Metrics on a weekly basis or a monthly basis. Then they have, you know, if it's a weekly basis, you have 51 other opportunities before the end of the year. If it's a monthly basis, well then you get 12 chances to improve your business before the end of the year.

So [00:13:00] when you start looking at that, it does make a tremendous difference. But the. The extra benefit of doing a dashboard is to bring those spreadsheets and that data and numbers to life to where it's really easy to see whether or not a trend is going in the right direction. So it is not just simply hey, you cleaned 14 houses this week and last week you cleaned.

I don't know, 10 in the same amount of time. But you're actually seeing that with numbers that, that come alive with color and graphs. And it just makes it a little easier. But just like our housekeeping example. For some folks that could take all day to find the numbers, to figure out how to put 'em on a page.

And then to study that. And so that's where someone like myself comes in. I can do that part for you. I can collect all those numbers. I can think about what's the best way to put that on a page. And then, We would meet once a month and I would say, okay, here's your numbers and here's what I [00:14:00] see and here's the things that immediately pop out.

Tell me more about this. You know, since the last time we met you were gonna work on this particular issue in your business. How did that go? What, what did you try? Let's see if the numbers showed that it improved. And when you do that, then you get to learn as a business owner, little by little what's actually gonna move the needle.

And you know, I will say even in a franchise, you could have three different franchise owners of the same type of business. Yes. And they could still have issues that are unique to them. Yep. And solutions that are unique to them. So that's why I always drive home that these dashboards are not cookie cutter.

I don't show up and say, oh, you're a plumber, so let me pull out my plumbing dashboard. You know, it's more what is it like in your business, your plumbing business? That is not working the way you want it to right now. So what are some of the things that the dashboard, are there any common threads that you find that [00:15:00] people typically mistakes, that people make that, oh yes, of course.

Yeah. What are the typical things that people are doing? Big one is things that are bringing in revenue but are not actually Improving the bottom line. So you could be cleaning a, you know, I don't know, let's, let's say you get a 6,000 square foot house and you're cleaning it once a week and you know, since we're on this maid example, so let's say you're doing that and it's bringing in a lot of money.

But it also takes a lot of time. Whereas what if you had three office buildings? Well, people don't eat in office buildings as much. You know, they might have lunch or breakfast, but they're not cooking full meals. Nobody's showering in office buildings. For the most part. So they take a lot less time.

And so it's looking at, in your business, are there things that are driving your revenue really high but are not delivering profit? And that is a good analysis to do. And it's not always easy to do because what happens is [00:16:00] if you're in a business where you're doing a lot of things to drive revenue, But not profit, then you tend to be firefighting, right?

You tend to be going from one crisis to the next especially on the cash side. And so you don't have enough time and you're not used to taking on this data. So that's where, again, someone like myself can come in and come in with a fresh set of eyes and say, why, why do you do these $6,000 or 6,000 square foot mansions?

You know, these condos over here, you can do 10 because you don't have to drive anywhere or whatever. You know, I mean, just to use that as an example. So that is the number one mistake is, is mistaking that busyness for profit. And they're not always the same thing. And then I would say the other is, Spending money on advertising without really knowing if that's coming back in the door.

And there's, there's a, I mean, we could spend a whole podcast talking about all the ways to make sure you do that Right. But in general, if you're putting a [00:17:00] dollar out there how much are, are, how much of that are you getting back? And are you putting it in the right spots? And that can be different.

Market to market. Well, and isn't that also, I mean, when we're thinking social media, direct mail, all those kind of things it is kind of hard to track some of it, right? Yes. Yes. And I can remember when social media first came on the scene in the world of franchising, and the franchise companies would go crazy because they couldn't understand they're spending all this money and they couldn't see any results.

And you know, it's a thing, it's a process, right? It takes time and,of that. So howt. So how do you help people to recognize whether or not what they're doing is paying off? What are sometimes it's a simple tweak inside of how they're collecting the data. So when they're getting a new customer you know, obviously the first one would be, how did you hear about us? Right? But there's a difference between writing [00:18:00] that on a form and capturing that in an electronic way. That can then be analyzed. So sometimes you're tweaking their accounting software so that you can see that happen because you know, yes, you can run a billboard and yes, you can put an ad on TV and you can have eyeballs staring at those things.

But those are not translating into bank account deposits and bank account deposits are what are gonna matter. Click do not make you rich. Right. Yeah, exactly. So there, there's you know, there's pencil and paper ways, right? And then there's accounting software ways and sometimes we just use a simple data spreadsheet, you know, a Google sheet.

The idea is to track what matters. Not what I think matters. So the first piece of any of those dashboard builds is to see what's. Actually not working. Cuz that's where we wanna start those items that we need [00:19:00] to tweak. So I, when I I have a metric course, and the first thing I ask is, what's keeping you up at night?

Right? Because those are the things, right? That, whether it's staff retention or cashflow problems, or, you know, customer service problems, I mean, there's always something that is. In the back of your head, as a business owner that's making it hard to sleep. So let's start with those. Let's get you sleeping again.

Yeah. So give me a success story of someone that came to you that was really struggling and how did you turn them around, get the ship going in the right direction? Well, so, you know, this is a pretty common one. And it could apply to a lot of industries, but this particular industry was a cabinet maker.

And they You know, they were a successful cabinet maker, had lots of employees, and they, they made certain lines of cabinets and then they got this excitement around [00:20:00] doing a custom line. So the, the struggle that they were having is after putting in the custom line, they were struggling with cash flow issues and employee retention issues and customer service.

Issues that were leading to rework. Right? So having to do the work again or come out again and fix it. And when they really started to look at their numbers, it was. Centered around this custom line. It was taking longer than expected, and the rework and customer service problems were on the custom side of the business, not on the stock side of the business.

And so while it did make you know Outside looking in, the revenue looked great, right? Because these custom jobs were expensive, but it was causing stress in the manufacturing line because this custom work was very different than, you know, today we're making this line of cabinets, which they'd been making for 20 years.

So you were [00:21:00] stressing the, the shop out. You were stressing customer service out because they were having to go out and, you know. Address these issues. And then there was the rework, right? Which is always free cuz you wanna make your customer happy, of course. So of course revenue was great, but it was creating a, a cascade of issues that ultimately...