Small Business Answer Man

John Briggs is the founder of Incite Tax. His theme is, "The IRS Sucks", and business owners should keep more of their money to build long-term wealth. John is a man on a mission to give entrepreneurs an actual work-life balance so they don't get burned out. He helps them increase their cash immediately so they can have confidence in their choices and become financially resilient.

Today John will give us expert advice on cash flow management problems and he will share tax strategies.

• Cash flow is the lifeblood of our business. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the emergencies and urgencies of day-to-day business that we forget to address cash flow.
• One mistake is assuming that the IRS is right. While they have a lot of authority, the employees there may not be competent.
• Parkinson's law for cash flow would say that we will expand to spend all the cash available. We need to be careful not to fall into this trap.
• John recommends using the Profit First method. (See Gary's interview Ep: 061 Mike Michalowicz – Ascend Business Mastermind (goascend.biz)
• John equates taxes and the IRS to playing a board game. If you read the rules, there is likely something you can take advantage of to decrease your tax burden.
• The 4th quarter is an excellent time to plan tax strategies.
• Make sure your accountant isn't using the plug and chug method. — They just plug in your numbers and submit them to the IRS and chug along instead of being proactive to seek tax advantages for you.
• John works with clients all over the US.
• Paying yourself first is really important.
• John has a book coming out called The 3.3 Rule. John shares the importance of taking breaks to increase your productivity.

Your best advice may be different than someone else. Be aware that you are at a different point in your business than what others are so just realize you need to work on what you need to work on.

Website: incitetax.com

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Kurt Uhlir is known for being at the front lines for creating several of the marketing channels we all use today, including social media management, influencer marketing, and location-based marketing. In addition to his experience building and/or operating dozens of companies, he has advised hundreds more. The unique experience of being inside hundreds of high-growth companies with the opportunity to analyze, scale, make changes of leadership, and advisement has labeled him "the king of scaling businesses".

Kurt will help us think about how to scale operations specifically around marketing and sales.

• Batching, scheduling and automation of marketing is crucial.
• Keep engaged with past customers.
• Start the conversation with your potential customers before they are ready to buy.
• Send follow-up messages to your customers. If you think about all the messages at once and what the best timing is, you will have better content.
• Marketing thrives more on influence than authority. It comes from offering your expertise.
• You must understand your client. You don't have to agree with them but you do need to understand why they are thinking what they are thinking.
• Most companies should be spending more than they are on marketing. However, they should spend it wisely.
• Kurt's recommendation for most businesses is to spend 2 to 10 percent but to be sure to put "Profit First". If you abandon your Profit First mentality you endanger your business.
• Be sure to review where you have recurring spending.

Small business owners should look at netweaving. This is looking at what you can do for others to benefit them.

Website: kurtuhlir.com

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RICHARD A. MORAN is a Silicon Valley-based business leader, workplace pundit, bestselling author, venture capitalist, former CEO and college president. He is best known for his series of humorous business books beginning with the bestselling, Never Confuse a Memo with Reality, and is credited with starting the genre of "Business Bullet Books." His body of work includes 10 books about using commonsense in business. He is the host of the CBS syndicated radio program, "In the Workplace." Rich has appeared on CNN, NPR, and most major media outlets.

Richard will help business owners solve the problem of decision making and simplify it.

• Richard's message is to stop saying the word "Whatever" because you come across as a slacker. You also are not making a decision and every decision matters even the small ones.
• When you are faced with a decision – make it.
• Research shows that the decision you would make in the first few minutes is usually also the decision you would make 2 weeks later so go ahead and make the decision instead of delaying.
• Gut decisions are okay as long as you a very familiar with a topic. You can also use pros and cons or an algorithm such as if this then that.
• Do not let your emotions be a part of your decision-making. Be self-aware of your feelings.
• You need to clarify your intentions. If you have the clarification it makes your decisions easier.
• Sometimes, it can be very efficient to make the same decision.
• Richard's book is Never Say Whatever: How Small Decisions Make a Big Difference

Pay attention to the small decisions. Sometimes it's the small decisions that really end up mattering.

Website: richardmoran.com

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Josh Fonger is a consultant, coach, and speaker who is recognized as the leading authority in Business Performance Architecture and CEO of WTS Enterprises. He helped hundreds of businesses grow simply using the WTS Method, from working "in" their businesses to working "on" their businesses.

Help ambitious business owner break free of the day-to-day and working their tails off by working on systems and processes.

• Yoyo business is where a business grows and then they hit a plateau and then just kind of go up and down. The business is often their own deterrent to growth. This comes from a continuous back and forth shift from sales to customer service.
• Working on systems and processes can help alleviate the yoyo situation.
• It's important for business owners to realize their business is a separate entity from themselves. That allows them to look at their business more objectively.
• Concentrate on doing the important, not urgent thing. Create the system. It makes your business scalable.
• It is crucial to document your systems and processes.
• Look at your company as a collection of systems.
• Take your biggest problem and create a system and then hand it over.
• Document it, delegate it and free up your time.

You probably don't need more information. You need to assimilate the right information in the right order to take you where you want to go. Get someone from the outside to hold you accountable.

Website: wtsenterprises.com

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Lisa is the CEO of SMITH Co., a sales consulting firm focused on modern midsize B2B businesses. She understands her client's challenges because she's been there as a "COVIDpreneur". Despite the turbulent economic landscape, she reached six figures in her first year of business.

Businesses often want to off set sales and she will help with the question of when to hire outside sales and what to pay them.

• The right time to think about adding a sales person is when things slow down, when you just can't keep up or when your referrals dry up.
• You need to know what your sales cycle looks like. You need to arm them with as much information and processes as possible. What is your Unique Selling Proposition.
• You do not want to hire someone without the tools. Else, you are hiring them to create the process and organization for you.
• Be sure you are doing the things necessary to keep your current customers happy.
• 80% of revenue with B2Bs is from their current customer base.
• The lowest price is not the best. You have to create value for your customer.
• 5 Simple steps to reframe your sales.
  • Look at your data to be proactive.
  • Team – look at who is involved. You may have too many or you may have too few.
  • Automation is important but don't rely too heavily on it.
  • Follow up is crucial. You can do this without sounding aggressive by taking the right tone.
  • Understand your messaging. Remember sales is about psychology and story telling.
• Introverts make great salespeople because they have learned to be good listeners and know how to ask great questions. However, you will need to provide them with time to recharge.

You wear a lot of hats as a business owner. It's important to start removing those hats and delegating so that you can work ON your business instead of IN your business.

Website: smithcous.com

Podcast gift: Sign up for a FREE 30-minute call to reveal your Sales Blindspots by going to Lisa's website simthcous.com

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Mickie Kennedy is the Founder and President of eReleases, the small business leader for press release distribution, now celebrating 24 years in business. He is an expert at helping small businesses increase their visibility and credibility and he's here today to share some valuable insights.

How to build a strategic PR campaign using press releases and building one that's effective and will succeed.

• Mickie started with PR releases in the telecommunications world and slowly built his database.
• A press release is written in third person. It is great to include a company quote. You provide data and facts and then the hook of what you are offering. You hope that it turns into original content.
• When a journalist covers your company in an article, it makes you an expert in that field.
• Press releases can distinguish your company in the marketplace.
• When putting a press release together, make sure to include all the elements of a good story.
• Being authentic can be helpful.
• Including surveys or studies can be useful.
• You need to know how you are different that others in your industry.
• Go to ereleases.com/plan for Mickie's podcast gift.

Don't waste your money. Measure everything. Split test everything – advertising to onboarding – to determine if there are better ways to do things.

Website: ereleases.com

Podcast gift: 8 Steps to Getting Media Coverage

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After growing up in Houston, Jesse Rubenfeld began his career in New York City at the Lime Group of companies doing the books for a variety of companies, gaining experience with non-profit, software industry, hedge fund, and management company accounting. After serving as LimeWire's CFO for his last four years there, he joined the D. E. Shaw Group as the controller of the research division that builds supercomputers to revolutionize drug discovery. From the beginning, Jesse's interest in technology led him to automate financial operations, first with spreadsheets, then Perl, and most recently Python. He founded FinOptimal to help QuickBooks Online-based businesses streamline their financial operations, optimizing value-per-dollar with an outsourced accounting service heavily focused on automation. Jesse has bachelor's degrees from UPENN and Wharton, and an MBA from Columbia, and he lives in Houston with his wife and four children.

Keep your books on accrual basis as quickly and cheaply as possible. Identifying your margins.

• Jesse says it's an exciting time to be an accountant. They are moving towards being strategic advisors and are learning to use technology to their benefit.
• It's important to know how much profit you are making. How are you evaluating how much money you are making?
• Jesse's company helps make software that automates makes adjusting entries that can help predict profits. This software makes things faster and cheaper.
• Doing all of the adjusting entries manually can be time consuming and can get sloppy.
• API – Application Programmer Interfacer
• API help QuickBooks interface with other programs such as payroll and inventory systems.
• Some 3rd party sites pass in too much information or not enough information.
• Data entry is automatable.
• "If you can't measure it, you can't move it."

Care about accrual accounting.

Website: finoptimal.com

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Ron Story Jr. was born and raised in East St. Louis, IL. He started his first business as a kid, collecting and recycling aluminum cans so that he could buy the toys he wanted. That drive to solve a problem in order to get the things that he wants continues today, just on a larger scale.

Ron's mission is to help people become financially independent without sacrificing everything to do it. ‍

Many of the mistakes that entrepreneurs make, he's already made. Ron's businesses try to solve the two biggest problems that he believes most entrepreneurs have when getting started. Those problems are related to lead generation and closing deals. That's what he's spent his life doing, from age 21 to 34 as a financial advisor and the last 10 years as a consultant to software companies as he's traveled around the world.‍

Ron's superpower is cold outreach. He is going to show us how to do that without experiencing any of the rejection that come with it.

• The first thing Ron did was to change his mindset about outreach.
• Realizing that all marketing starts as outbound can help relieve some of the pressure and alleviate feeling like a greasy salesman
• Automation can help you.
• Don't start and stop your automation.
• You can dial in and target your audience better than ever before because of the data available.
• This helps you get the right message in front of the right person at the right time.
• For those that say email is dead — Don't let your emotions get involved. Let the data determine if you should use email.
• 2 Things you need
  • Look for email sales software: Woodpecker, MailShake, Outreach.com, Outplay, Breakcold (Not Mailchimp which does email blasts)
  • Get your data source that is valid
  • Then write your emails to send
• Ron will reach out to 500 people for you to show you how his method works. Go to pitchdb.com/calendar

No one has ever died because of cold outreach. So just get started and try. Don't attach the outcome to your personal ego.

Website: ronstoryjr.com and pitchdb.com

Podcast Gift – Ron's offer – schedule a call: pitchdb.com/calendar

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Mark Carpenter is a serial storyteller. He teaches people how to lead intentionally by telling stories that teach, lead, sell, and inspire. He is the co-creator of the best-selling book and workshop "Master Storytelling: How to Turn Your Experiences Into Stories that Teach, Lead, and Inspire".

Mark is going to focus on connecting with people through storytelling to achieve business goals.

• We are always dealing with people.
• How are we going to get to know, like and trust people? We can do this through story.
• Research shows that people that learn information through stories, retain the information better and find you to be more credible.
• Storytelling can be a game changer.
• Learn the skill and structure, get feedback and practice to get good at storytelling. You won't get better by sitting on the sidelines. You've got to do it!
• One of the biggest mistakes in storytelling is to not knowing what your purpose and point of the story is. "You've got to know how to land the plane."
• You need to know your audience. Your story is more about your customer than it is about you.
• The extraordinary lives inside the ordinary. If you have an experience that you have an emotional reaction to, it is likely there is a lesson and a story to be shared.

Your stories matter. Don't discount the things that happen to you. They have the power to connect with those inside and outside your organization.

Website: master-storytelling.com

Podcast Gift – Mark's E-book: master-storytelling.com/podcastgift

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Justin Janowski has helped hundreds of coaches build their dream businesses from the ground up. Driven by his faith, he founded Faith2Influence to help people learn what it takes to turn coaching into a profitable business venture. Justin has guided Christian and non-Christian coaches alike through the rewarding process of optimizing business models, pricing, and sales strategies so that they can scale their income alongside their impact. He has a passion for sharing this process with emerging Entrepreneurs to help them simplify and grow their businesses the right way. Justin currently lives in Milwaukee with his beautiful wife, Kara, and their playful kiddos, Grace and Gavin.

Justin is going to help us sell more with ease in an honest way.

• Justin has been in sales since he was 18.
• Justin wants to encourage others. If you are called to do something, go and do it even if you are scared.
• Fear around selling can come from old stories or bad experiences. These stories might say that sales are pushy or greedy.
• You can rewrite that story. Sales with you can feel good, fun and easy.
• Many Christians self-sabotage because they feel money is evil. They need to remember that the love of money is evil. If you use your money to help others it can be a benefit.
• Being transparent is an important part of sales. A good start is to start with a pre-frame so that the customer knows what the conversation is going to look like and what they can expect.
• We can be persistent without being pushy by asking good questions, being curious and validating what they are feeling.
• Be focused in your business to do the things to increase sales.

Make sure you keep the main the the main thing. The main thing is SALES!

Website: salesisgood.com

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