Seven things winning business owners do in uncertain economic times

0:04 Hi, you have done too far censure. W F WOW for you your. Ro This is the pipe Man here on the Adventure of Pipe Man W four CY Radio. And I am here again with my positively Pipeman segment and we are here with our expert resident guest on business and and uh boy, do we have something great today to talk about because we're going to talk about seven things winning business owners do in uncertain economic times. And what could be more appropriate than in twenty twenty five talking about this, because certainly I think everything is uncertain times right now.

0:55 So let's welcome to the show once again. Michael Barbarita. How are you. It's out, Thanks for having me again, doing my pleasure. So what are these seven things? Well, yeah, so you know, we can never really be ready for uncertain times or bad economic conditions, but we can be prepared. And these seven things is what we is how we need to prepare for those difficult times that happen inevitably. I always say expect the unexpected. Right, yeah, and sometimes you get surprised with where it goes deeper than the unexpected unfortunately. Yeah. But one of the greatest characteristics of a business owner is the ability to be to adapt and to be flexible to change.

1:48 A lot of business owners aren't uh, and as a result, UH, they have a tough They have a tough time thriving in uncertain or add economic conditions or you know, unfavorable economic conditions. You have to be able to adapt and be flexible. And when you're not, when you're stagnant and you're not, you don't have the ability to change mindset, to change or make decisions quickly. What happens is is that you fall by the wayside in these in more difficult economic environment and so the ability to adapt is certainly number one. Secondly, you have to be able to define your personal goal. First. You know a lot of business owners talk. When I ask the business owner what's your number one goal, they always say, oh, I want to increase revenue fifty percent, or I want to generate a million dollars in revenue, or I have to keep asking them, so what will that do for you? Because that eventually gets them to whatever they number one goal really is. So they might say something like so if I'm interviewing a business owner, they'll say, well, my number one goal is to is to do you know, an extra million dollars of revenue. Okay, that's good. So once you've done a million dollars of revenue, what will that do for you? And they'll say, well, I'll be able

3:19 to hire somebody. I said, okay, great, you get a million dollars of revenue. You were able to hire somebody. What will that do for you? And then they'll say something like well, I'll have i'll have extra time. Great, I'm still not there yet. So a million dollars and so you're doing a million dollars of revenue, you hire someone, You have all this free time, what will that do for you? And then, finally, after peeling off all the layers of the onion, we get to their number one goal, which is usually but not all the time, some type of time freedom and leveraged revenue where the business runs by itself. And then they have the time freedom to go on date nights with their wife, they have the time freedom to go to kids events. They have the time freedom without worrying about the office or the or the company. They have the time freedom to go on more vacations. That type of thing that's usually not all the time, but it's usually what their number one goal really is so you really got to get down to that level when determining your number one goal. So it's your number one personal goal first, then your business goal which is number three to now you can talk about getting to the million. Now you can talk about getting to the million dollars or how you're going to leverage the revenue so that you don't have to be there. So, but normally people start with revenue. They really should start with that profit goals first, then revenue. The reason is is because that profit is how you determine how you

4:53 know what what your take home pay is and and what how much value you're bringing to the business. So you start with net profit goals first. That way you can determine a lot of things. I mean, you can talk about revenue, but if your bottom line is weak, we're what do we. Do here exactly? You know, you could have all the revenue in the world, but if you are not getting a jerry in net profit, the revenue doesn't do you any good. Right, And then that's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, so you have to have net profit goals first, then revenue goals, and then the other thing, Dean is you have to adopt a visionary mindset. You know, a lot of business owners make decisions for the here and the now, and they look at like the next three days when they make the decisions in difficult economic times, that mindset is a mindset of scarcity mm hm. And it's easy to go into negativity and scarcey, but you can't do it because the world isn't isn't ending, It's changing, and that's why we need to adapt, not shut down. Avoid scarcity based decisions and make visionary decisions. Think about the impact of your decision next quarter, not next week, next quarter, next year, five years from now. Make decisions that will serve you in the long run. Because when we think

6:25 about the vision of our company, says business owners, we business owners, it inspires us to think that way. Yeah. And I want to add to that too, that that is basically how this network got started. I started it in the worst economy in US history at that time, yep, and at a time where streaming was not a word yet, podcasting was not a word yet. But I did have a vision because I was at what they would call an internet radio station at that time, and because streaming wasn't a word, and I was like, man, this is the future, but not like this because basically the station, you know, I was used to doing radio shows in New York and fancy studios, and the station was doing it to have their home at the dining room table.

7:21 And it's like, no, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And if. My vision of where media was going to be, which is where it is today, you still have to do it the professional way, you know, and that is, you know, copy what is the previous technology, which I call terrestrial radio is the previous because it's not as popular anymore, but still professional studios, professional engineers, stay of the art equipment, and you know, basically I always said it was like Bill Gates and IBM. Bill Gates had a vision of a piece in every home. IBM couldnot see that vision.

8:03 They said, you're nuts. The mainframe's never going away. And IBM suffered for twenty five years after that to get back to where they were from that day, and they're still not considered that they're still around, but they're not considered the icon they were then. They never really recovered, whereas Microsoft became that icon because of that vision of Bill Gates. Yeah, I mean, that's a great example of that visionary mindset. And you know, every business should have mission and a vision, and that vision should maintain itself even if there's uncertain times, even if there's bad economic conditions. Yeah, you know, So that's that's really important if you can maintain that, and I know it's difficult, but if you can maintain that visionary mindset, it's going to go a long way. And the next action item, Dean. Quite frankly, it's gonna freak out everyone because it's about knowing your numbers. And I have a few things to say about that. And one thing I have to say about it is that I've interviewed, you know, almost a couple of hundred business owners over the last couple of years, and eighty percent of the I asked three basic financial questions, what are your sales, what's your gross profit percent? What's your net profit percent?

9:36 And eighty percent of business owners that I interview don't know the answers to those questions. And winning business owners make the right decisions in bad economic times or in certain economic times because they make decisions based on the numbers. Now, when times are good, you get buyed, you get buy out. Looking at the numbers, you get Bye you can get bye. But to win in uncertain times, to win in bad or unfavorable economic conditions, you must make decisions based on the numbers. And what I've done is I've I've identified what I call the vital five. These five numbers should be with every business owner at all times. They should burn in their memory at all times, and that its sales, gross profit, gross profit percent, net profit, and your current cash balance. If you know these five numbers, I'm not saying you'll know everything about your business financially, you won't, but you'll know a lot of it and you'll be able to make decisions with confidence. And the reason why I say that is because if you track those metrics, not only know them, but track them, and you see, I'm starting to fall unfavorably, you can start You'll be able to start looking into fixing those areas fixing them

11:10 and so yeah, and so by constantly understanding those five numbers, you're able to manage your business more efficiently than eighty percent of your competitors do. And you're so right. It blows my mind how many people. Like. Let's say they apply for a business loan, and all the requirements for like an SBA loan. They don't have any of it. Like balance sheet. I've heard people say to me when I've said something about balance sheet, They're like, what's that? Like how you run business will have balance sheet? Or like when I talked to Prospects and we want to come up with what their budget is for doing business with me, and their answer is, I'll have to check my accounts. And I'm thinking in my head, what you know, Like you don't know how much money is in your bank account, you don't know how much available you have, like and for some of those people, that is absolutely true, and that can cause serious problems in your business to fly so blindly like that no.

12:21 Question, and that's the problem. But you know. But now I'm going to continue the freak out section session here because next, winning business owners in uncertain times and unfavorable economic conditions understand, not necessarily understand the financial statements, but understand what the financial statements are telling them, what the P and L is telling them, what the ballance sheet is telling them, and what the cash flow statement is telling them. And when I'm in a room of business owners and I ask how many people in this room have looked at their P and L look at their P and L at least once a month. About half the room raises their hand. In terms of looking at when I ask how many people look at their balance sheet to your point once a month, less than ten percent raise their hand. And when I asked how many people look at their cash flow statement, which is the third statement of importance, once a month, I might get one person to raise their hand. And what's incredible about that is that cash flow is the lifeblood of a business and it's being totally neglected by most business owners.

13:37 I know, I don't even understand now you couldnt know your cash flow because how you operate and stay in business without that, I don't know. I don't know. Now. Once again, you cannot look at these numbers and just always, you know, because you've been fleshed with cash recently, you'll get by, you know. But that's the issue we were talking about today, is what happens at uncertain or unfavorable economic times, and that's when it's a problem, big problem. Yeah. The next thing winning business owners have as I continue to freak them out on this on this numbers thing, and by the way, they don't have to the good new sentences You don't have to know how to read financial statements, but you need to understand the story behind them.

14:22 And you need to get help understanding the story behind those financial statements. So you got to get that help. And and you know, one of the beautiful things about our business is that we're both fractional CFOs and strategic implemitation specialists, So we know the strategy to do when the numbers are First of all, we know how to read the numbers, but technically and we can help you understand what's what's happening, allow you to get the understand the story behind the numbers. But then we have the fix for it. And so the next thing that winning business owners have and at certain times is a business and cash flow forecast. Why well, because the business and cash flow forecast helps you understand the outcome and ramifications of your decisions before you make them, Yeah, before you make them. And that's why it's so valuable. And that you know, most business owners are surprised by income taxes.

15:19 That's probably one of the biggest shockers that business at the end of the year. Right, Well, if you have a business at cash boat forecast, you'll never be surprised by that or anything for that matter again, because you always know what your projected profit looks like. And the same thing with the you know, the forecast from a cash flow standpoint tells you when it's cloudy, not when it's raining. Right. So the bottom line is, if you want to thrive at uncertain times, you the number one tool that you have to have, it's a business and cash flow forecast. And so the next thing is the winning business owners are uncertain times, they implement the right business strategies. And what we've found, and we've talked about this before, that ninety five percent of business strategies used today are identical to your competition. They know work. So your strategic plan at a minimum is to include a position of market dominance, which you've talked about before, a compelling offer, which we talked about the five components of a compelling offer in previous shows, and joint venture partnerships that are working, which is something we'll talk about soon.

16:28 Just to name three of several strategies that are available to you. And the sixth, I'm sorry, the seventh component here of a seventh action item is the general mindset of business owners an uncertain time scheme is to cut everything. You can't cut your way to success. We actually have a formula for cutting expenses. So you cut the it's a fourth part formula. You cut the expense if the expense doesn't help you acquire a customer, if the expense doesn't help you retain a customer, if the expense doesn't help increase the long term value a customer, and if the expense doesn't help deliver your product or service to the customer.

17:16 Yeah, because if you cut, if you cut expenses just to cut them, they could end up being a lot more costly than if you didn't cut them at all. That's exactly what happens. That's exactly what happens. And then if you apply these rules to expenses, this is This is also part of the seventh step, Look for the what I call look to invest in the three a's assets that produce revenue, amazing people to help you scale, and automation to leverage time. Because success at uncertain times is not defined by those who spend less. It's defined by those who spend smarter mm hm. And so you know we're all today, we're all facing the call to adapt and to make decisions based on the numbers, and those who do will make business a lot less terrifying.

18:09 And those who do will achieve that number one goal that they set out for themselves. And those who do will thrive in uncertain times and they're you know, Dean, there are more millionaires and billionaires minted in bad economic times than any other time period in history. Mm hmm. And so that's why I put together the seventh the seventh Step or seven action items for business owners. Love it and it is so true, like look at the Rockefellers came out of the Great Depression, you know, and so yeah, you came. Out of that when you study. Yes, she talked about how difficult the economy was, right. Because yeah, because that's really when like those are the best times when people think those are the worst times to start a business, right, those are the best time times because everybody else thinks it's the worst times. Right, So how do people get more information from you? Connect with you and all that good stuff?

19:11 Yeah, thank you, Dane. Once again this week I'm markering three lucky listeners. It's an opportunity to have an assessment with me, a ninety minute assessment, and I promise you that I will show you how to increase revenue a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars without spending any additional money on marketing or advertising, and simply go to our website. Next step CFO dot net, forward slash contact. In the contact page, fill it out and in the message section type the word one hundred K and I'll send you a calendar link where you can schedule a ninety minute session where I guarantee that I will show you a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars of additional revenue without spending additional dollar on marketing.

19:58 Or ass That sounds worth it to me for sure. Absolutely well. Once again, a very informive, great episode in a positively pipemin segment. And so thank you very much Michael Barbarita for being an expert you are, and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thank you for having me t Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin im W for CUI Radio.