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I'm Melissa Arlena(my friends call me Mel) and I help photographers get found on Google.
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Another episode on money, Profit First is a financial framework both Alison & Melissa use in their businesses.
Weather you’re new in business, struggling to make a profit or a seasoned pro, Profit First is bound to have some insight on organizing, saving, and creating profit in your business.
And, if you’re making any of the money mistakes from last episode, this book will help you straighten it out!
00:00:00 [Melissa]
Gives you a framework so that you’re not overspending in your business Yeah.
00:00:02 [Melissa]
And you need to cut back.
00:00:04 [Alison]
Hey.
00:00:05 [Alison]
I’m Allison, military spouse and family photographer.
00:00:07 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:00:07 [Melissa]
I’m Melissa, also a military spouse, lifestyle newborn photographer, and SEO expert for photographers.
00:00:13 [Melissa]
Between the two of us, we have a combined twenty seven years in photography and have lived through nine business relocations.
00:00:18 [Alison]
We’ve coached each other through all these challenges and to share our experience with you.
00:00:22 [Alison]
On this podcast, we’ll give you actionable steps to help you keep it moving.
00:00:29 [Alison]
Alright, guys.
00:00:29 [Alison]
Welcome back.
00:00:30 [Alison]
Okay.
00:00:31 [Alison]
Today, we’re talking about Profit First.
00:00:33 [Alison]
Profit First is actually a business book.
00:00:35 [Alison]
If you’ve listened to our business book episode, you heard about this one.
00:00:39 [Alison]
And this is a book Melissa and I both have used as the foundation for our finances and running a healthy business when it comes to money.
00:00:47 [Alison]
But just like all things money, we are not CPAs.
00:00:50 [Alison]
We are not accountants.
00:00:51 [Alison]
This is we are simply giving you anecdotal stories about what we have done.
00:00:57 [Alison]
The main Sharing our experiences.
00:00:58 [Alison]
Sharing our experiences to hopefully help you think a little bit better about what’s how you’re doing it, what you’re doing, and how you could maybe run your own business a little better.
00:01:08 [Alison]
So talk to your accountant before you do anything.
00:01:11 [Melissa]
Alright.
00:01:12 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:01:12 [Melissa]
So let’s get started.
00:01:13 [Melissa]
So, guys, I’ve been in business for sixteen years, almost going on seventeen years at this point.
00:01:18 [Melissa]
And, honestly, I did not have my financial crap together for the first ten years.
00:01:22 [Melissa]
Like, I was being by the seat of my pants on stuff.
00:01:26 [Melissa]
And I hit a point where it was during that pivot time of leaving weddings and going into, portraits, lifestyle newborn.
00:01:33 [Melissa]
I didn’t plan super ahead for that.
00:01:36 [Melissa]
I just hold the plug and just was like, alright.
00:01:37 [Melissa]
Now I’m a newborn photographer.
00:01:39 [Melissa]
And so I didn’t have any SEO built up or anything like that, and I ran my business into the ground.
00:01:44 [Melissa]
Like, I wasn’t booking any jobs.
00:01:45 [Melissa]
I was out of money.
00:01:46 [Melissa]
I could not stay in business.
00:01:48 [Melissa]
I actually went and got a part time job for a local jeweler for, I think, about a year and a half.
00:01:54 [Melissa]
And after that eighteen month mark, my husband was like, you have got to quit the jewelry business because your photography business, like, it’s now hurting where I couldn’t take on jobs and stuff.
00:02:02 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:02:03 [Melissa]
And so at that point, going back in, I was deathly scared of ruining my business again.
00:02:08 [Melissa]
Like, I did not wanna do that.
00:02:09 [Melissa]
I had built it back up.
00:02:11 [Melissa]
And so I needed to figure out some kind of system to put into place so that I could stay out of debt.
00:02:18 [Melissa]
And Profit First, I can’t even remember how I found it.
00:02:20 [Melissa]
It’s one of those business books.
00:02:21 [Melissa]
If you’re in any groups with creative or any groups with just, you know, entrepreneurs and stuff like that, it’s gonna get mentioned.
00:02:27 [Melissa]
Not a very long read, but it is just a huge game changer in your business.
00:02:32 [Melissa]
Even if you have not started charging, you’re still in a portfolio building stage.
00:02:35 [Melissa]
You need to go read this because Set it up
00:02:37 [Alison]
and start from scratch.
00:02:39 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:02:39 [Melissa]
It puts you on such good footing.
00:02:41 [Melissa]
And because of doing it now, now because I have Profit First, I I have a profit account.
00:02:46 [Melissa]
Account.
00:02:46 [Melissa]
I get paid as an owner regularly.
00:02:48 [Melissa]
I always have money set aside for taxes.
00:02:50 [Melissa]
I know how much my operating expenses are so I can stay within that.
00:02:54 [Melissa]
That’s probably the thing I love so much about Profit First is it’s basically four categories.
00:02:58 [Melissa]
So when you’re when you get a job and you’ve booked a job from a client, and you get that paycheck in and you’ve cleared the job, and now you’ve got that money sitting in your account, Profit First is a system for knowing how much of you as the photographer and owner to get paid, how much money goes gets set aside for taxes, how much money set aside for profit.
00:03:17 [Alison]
Which all goes into helping you realize how much money you have to be charging in the first place in order to get a reasonable respectable profit.
00:03:25 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:03:26 [Alison]
And and save for your expenses and save for replacing your gear and pay for all those subscriptions like Lightroom and Photoshop and Yeah.
00:03:32 [Melissa]
And those all fall in the fourth category of, like, operating expenses.
00:03:35 [Melissa]
And so what I love is when you look at that percentage and it’s let’s say you said a percentage of percent goes for operating expenses, that next month, if your operating expenses are more than that 25%, now you’re not getting paid as much.
00:03:48 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:48 [Melissa]
So that’s where You’re doing something wrong.
00:03:51 [Melissa]
It really pushes that.
00:03:52 [Melissa]
And I think he talks about if I remember this correctly, he said he wanted to flip the script on it was always the business expenses got paid first, and then the owner got paid last.
00:04:01 [Melissa]
And so he flips it around so the owner gets paid first and then the business expenses, well, taxes.
00:04:07 [Melissa]
I guess, owner taxes Yeah.
00:04:08 [Melissa]
And then business expenses.
00:04:10 [Melissa]
But point being, it allows you a framework so that you’re not overspending in your business Yeah.
00:04:14 [Melissa]
And you need to cut back.
00:04:15 [Melissa]
And he
00:04:15 [Alison]
makes the analogy, the whole book of just smaller plates.
00:04:19 [Alison]
Okay.
00:04:19 [Alison]
You wanna eat less, use a smaller plate, and you put less food on the smaller plate.
00:04:23 [Alison]
And it’s the same concept.
00:04:24 [Alison]
The traditional accounting is typically one giant account and a spreadsheet that shows you where everything belongs or is accounting for.
00:04:32 [Alison]
I don’t read numbers well.
00:04:34 [Alison]
It just looks like a pool of, like, squiggly lines to me.
00:04:37 [Alison]
But when you separate all these separate accounts, and that’s what he’s saying is you have separate banking accounts.
00:04:42 [Alison]
Yes.
00:04:43 [Alison]
You are recreating smaller plates or smaller pots of money from this one giant pot.
00:04:48 [Alison]
And therefore, you can more wisely understand where your money is going, how much you have to work with, and move more in a more healthy way with your business.
00:04:59 [Alison]
Hey, girl.
00:05:00 [Alison]
Yes.
00:05:01 [Alison]
You.
00:05:01 [Alison]
The one stuck in that business quicksand, it’s all in here.
00:05:04 [Alison]
If you’ve been staring at your pricing overwhelmed by SEO, social media, email list, or just feeling like you’re spinning your wheels trying to make things profitable, I’ve got you.
00:05:14 [Alison]
I’ve been there.
00:05:14 [Alison]
You know, I’m offering a $100 off one on one coaching just for my podcast listeners.
00:05:20 [Alison]
Book now and you can schedule your coaching session during any time of December 24 or through February 25.
00:05:26 [Alison]
This is your chance to get personalized direction and I mean personalized eyeball deep in your business on the things that matter most.
00:05:33 [Alison]
Whether it’s upping your pricing, strategizing a move, or just finding more clients ready to give you all their money and make it rain dollar bills.
00:05:41 [Alison]
Let’s stop feeling stuck.
00:05:42 [Alison]
Get out of your own head.
00:05:43 [Alison]
Start building a business that serves you and your family.
00:05:46 [Alison]
The link in the show notes, reach out and tell me you want that $100 off, and let’s keep it moving.
00:05:52 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:05:53 [Melissa]
And one tip I will give you guys at what I do when it comes to those plates and stuff like that and dispersing things out is I operate a month ahead.
00:06:01 [Melissa]
And I don’t really know exactly how to phrase it short in a short manner like that, but, basically, everything that I make in October gets paid out in November.
00:06:10 [Melissa]
So that way, it gives me some prep time and stuff.
00:06:13 [Melissa]
So when I sit down November 1, I’m looking back at all the money that went into our deposit account for all of our October jobs.
00:06:21 [Melissa]
And then I go through and I have a spreadsheet and I say, okay.
00:06:24 [Melissa]
Based on my profit first percentages, this amount is going to my paycheck.
00:06:28 [Melissa]
This amount is going to operating expenses.
00:06:30 [Melissa]
This amount is going to profit.
00:06:31 [Melissa]
This is going to my tax account.
00:06:33 [Melissa]
And I do that so that let’s say we’re in the October and because I’ve had this happen.
00:06:39 [Melissa]
A client says, my website’s not done yet for my web designer.
00:06:42 [Melissa]
I need to push a month.
00:06:44 [Melissa]
And if she were to push in the middle of that month and I’m already spending that money because I think
00:06:49 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:06:49 [Alison]
In
00:06:49 [Melissa]
this month or whatever, like, that that’s not
00:06:51 [Alison]
actively working on it.
00:06:53 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:06:53 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:06:54 [Melissa]
Like, you just so that way, it gives you that chance to plan ahead.
00:06:57 [Melissa]
And so then I also know too.
00:06:59 [Melissa]
Okay.
00:06:59 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:07:00 [Melissa]
That job got pushed.
00:07:01 [Melissa]
Next month is gonna be next month’s gonna be great as far as income, but the amount that we have to operate off of maybe less.
00:07:07 [Melissa]
So maybe I need to cut some things for that month.
00:07:09 [Melissa]
It just, to me, helps me run a healthier business because I’m not operating out of panic mode if something changes because I have time to recover from that.
00:07:17 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:07:17 [Alison]
And there’s something you can be glazed over there too.
00:07:20 [Alison]
So there’s a four cap operating expenses, taxes, profit, and owner’s pay.
00:07:24 [Alison]
But there’s also a fifth account for deposits or holding.
00:07:28 [Alison]
So we both do this.
00:07:29 [Alison]
We operate this differently, but we both have a that you want that catch all, the net.
00:07:34 [Melissa]
Well, and the way I have the four accounts, owners pay for me, it gets transferred to my personal account.
00:07:40 [Melissa]
So I don’t have a separate owners pay account.
00:07:41 [Melissa]
I do have the four accounts.
00:07:42 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:07:43 [Alison]
There’s several different ways to do this.
00:07:44 [Alison]
See, I have five.
00:07:45 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:07:45 [Alison]
I technically have four, but then my Stripe is my holding account.
00:07:49 [Alison]
So I don’t Okay.
00:07:50 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:07:50 [Alison]
It’s totally different.
00:07:51 [Melissa]
My point is you definitely account.
00:07:53 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:07:54 [Alison]
So you have a holding account where everything sits until you provide or complete the service or job.
00:08:00 [Alison]
And then you distribute amongst yourselves to your different accounts wherever they may be.
00:08:04 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:08:05 [Alison]
And for me And
00:08:06 [Melissa]
so I wait until the following month to make that
00:08:08 [Alison]
And you don’t have to do that.
00:08:09 [Alison]
I don’t do that at all.
00:08:10 [Alison]
I do it as jobs are completed either every week or every other week.
00:08:14 [Alison]
And so there’s pros and cons to that.
00:08:16 [Alison]
Waiting a month, that means you’re just doing this one thing once a month and you’re saving some time by batch automated by batching it.
00:08:21 [Alison]
I’m batching it.
00:08:22 [Alison]
I’m just batching it once a week a week depending on how many jobs I have or if I need money.
00:08:28 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:08:28 [Alison]
And then the one
00:08:29 [Melissa]
the big negative for mine is you have to make it where, okay, I’m if I’m gonna start this in September, I’m not gonna actually get a paycheck until Yeah.
00:08:37 [Alison]
You forego that for that very first paycheck you
00:08:40 [Melissa]
just Or go.
00:08:41 [Melissa]
And for me, I like, I think that’s the better way.
00:08:43 [Melissa]
Like, just rip that band aid off, do it right now, and then that way, it can set you up going forward.
00:08:48 [Melissa]
But so that is the negative on mine is that you do have to be able to go, okay.
00:08:52 [Melissa]
We’re not gonna have a paycheck this month.
00:08:53 [Melissa]
But it also works if you had, like, an overage on a month or something, and then you’re like, alright.
00:08:56 [Alison]
Wait.
00:08:57 [Alison]
But if you’re that wouldn’t even be a big deal if you’re moving and you know you’re not gonna have income for Right.
00:09:02 [Alison]
Three or four months.
00:09:02 [Alison]
Hey.
00:09:03 [Alison]
There you go.
00:09:03 [Alison]
Go ahead and get started right there.
00:09:05 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:09:05 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:09:06 [Melissa]
And then, like, for my stuff too, I have you have to track things also.
00:09:10 [Melissa]
Like, you wanna be keeping count of, you know, your sessions, your sales tax, your, cost of goods, your retainers, all of that kind of stuff.
00:09:18 [Melissa]
So even within all of this where we talk about these categories, you have to make sure you’re keeping track of all of the other stuff too.
00:09:24 [Melissa]
So not everything falls neatly into these, and you may like, most of that stuff’s gonna fall under, like, operating expenses kind of thing.
00:09:30 [Melissa]
And then for me, I go ahead and I just throw my sales tax.
00:09:33 [Melissa]
I do have an account for sales tax.
00:09:35 [Melissa]
I do I did forget.
00:09:36 [Melissa]
I do have that one.
00:09:37 [Melissa]
And so easy to just throw that in there and keep it separate from my federal taxes.
00:09:41 [Melissa]
Because Allison said, I don’t wanna look at a spreadsheet and go, okay.
00:09:44 [Melissa]
Well, the tax account has $500 in it.
00:09:47 [Melissa]
How much of that is sales tax and how much is federal taxes?
00:09:49 [Melissa]
Like, I don’t wanna have so I just have separate accounts for all of
00:09:51 [Alison]
that.
00:09:52 [Alison]
And I don’t even think like that.
00:09:53 [Alison]
I just there’s all my taxes.
00:09:54 [Alison]
Ta da.
00:09:55 [Melissa]
Hey there, photographers.
00:09:57 [Melissa]
Struggling with what to blog about?
00:09:58 [Melissa]
Tired of staring at that blinky cursor waiting for inspiration to strike?
00:10:02 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:10:02 [Melissa]
We’ve all been there.
00:10:03 [Melissa]
That is why I created the blogging club.
00:10:05 [Melissa]
Imagine this.
00:10:07 [Melissa]
Every month, you know exactly what to blog.
00:10:09 [Melissa]
More guessing games or frantic Googling.
00:10:11 [Melissa]
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00:10:24 [Melissa]
Plus, we’ve got a community to cheer you on after every post.
00:10:27 [Melissa]
Let’s take the guesswork out of blogging and start driving those dream clients to your site.
00:10:31 [Melissa]
Head to the bloggingclub.com and use code t b c trial to get 50% off your first month and join us today.
00:10:40 [Alison]
So for me, the way I mentioned, I pay out weekly or biweekly.
00:10:42 [Alison]
My deposits account is my credit card processor Stripe.
00:10:46 [Alison]
I only have one, and that is why.
00:10:47 [Alison]
Because I don’t want PayPal and Stripe and having to, like
00:10:50 [Melissa]
Oh, yeah.
00:10:51 [Melissa]
I’ve got do
00:10:51 [Alison]
the combo no.
00:10:52 [Alison]
I’ve got, like, three.
00:10:53 [Melissa]
Like, three different places.
00:10:54 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:10:54 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:10:55 [Alison]
Maybe PayPal and that’s a different story.
00:10:57 [Alison]
Another for another time.
00:10:58 [Alison]
Ask me on Instagram.
00:11:00 [Alison]
But so Stripe automatically does these automatic payouts, which freaked me out the first time.
00:11:05 [Alison]
And I had to figure out how to do manual payouts.
00:11:07 [Alison]
And so I do a manual payout based on when I completed jobs.
00:11:11 [Alison]
This week, I completed regular session and three mini sessions.
00:11:14 [Alison]
And so it does take a little math.
00:11:16 [Alison]
Okay.
00:11:16 [Alison]
Like, here are my here’s here’s what they paid me.
00:11:19 [Alison]
I less the Stripe fees.
00:11:20 [Alison]
Of course, if they’re paying the whole thing, but I’m their Stripe is keeping their percentage.
00:11:25 [Alison]
I can’t overdraft and take that whole bit.
00:11:27 [Alison]
So you have to do a little math about what Stripe is keeping, and then you transfer that.
00:11:32 [Alison]
And I do have a spreadsheet just unless it says that tracks all of this.
00:11:35 [Alison]
Right?
00:11:35 [Alison]
So I track what session I, am transferring, the client name, whether it’s their session or their order.
00:11:42 [Alison]
And then I have a spreadsheet where it’s that sum that’s being transferred, the note about who and what it’s for, the date it’s being transferred, and then the spreadsheet with all those categories and percentages that that automatically populate Yep.
00:11:53 [Alison]
What goes to what account.
00:11:55 [Alison]
And then the date that those are transferred because it takes one to two days for a different go from Stripe to my accounts.
00:12:00 [Alison]
Mhmm.
00:12:01 [Alison]
And then I either have to schedule those out three or four days ahead or go in after it’s hit and start divvying out.
00:12:07 [Alison]
Okay.
00:12:08 [Alison]
Everything hit my owner’s comp.
00:12:09 [Alison]
Now I transfer to myself, to taxes, to profit, etcetera.
00:12:13 [Alison]
And so that’s how I do it, and I do that twice a month, and that’s working for me.
00:12:17 [Melissa]
So I always that’s what I do the first of the month.
00:12:19 [Melissa]
I have a spreadsheet also.
00:12:20 [Melissa]
Allison and I have different spreadsheets, and we’ve created them on the on our own.
00:12:23 [Melissa]
There’s not one necessarily that we can point you guys to.
00:12:26 [Melissa]
Just start figuring out, like, what are some things I need to track.
00:12:28 [Melissa]
And I realized too, like, I have a CRM, and I have QuickBooks, and I have a bookkeeper, and I have an accountant, but I still have a spreadsheet that Yeah.
00:12:36 [Melissa]
Because it just is helpful for me.
00:12:38 [Melissa]
It’s just helpful for me to sit down in one glance because I have different areas of revenue coming in.
00:12:43 [Melissa]
Some things are in Taabe, some things are in ThriveCart.
00:12:46 [Melissa]
Like, I don’t Yeah.
00:12:46 [Melissa]
For me to go back and forth.
00:12:47 [Melissa]
So it just makes it easier for me to just have that one spreadsheet.
00:12:50 [Melissa]
And I think it was in the the book Get Rich Lucky Bee, so that way we don’t have to get Yeah.
00:12:55 [Melissa]
Worth reading on this episode.
00:12:56 [Melissa]
She talks about being in your accounts and knowing the money that’s coming in.
00:13:00 [Melissa]
Don’t just sit there and ignore it.
00:13:02 [Melissa]
Have your hands on it and looking at what your what’s in your accounts, what jobs are coming in, and writing it all down.
00:13:08 [Melissa]
And I so when I read that, I was like, oh, I’m actually already doing that.
00:13:10 [Melissa]
And I I get an adrenaline boost when I get to add somebody to my spreadsheet.
00:13:14 [Melissa]
I’m like, yay.
00:13:15 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:13:15 [Alison]
That’s then that’s smart.
00:13:16 [Alison]
And I started to do that because I I do idea of that, and I couldn’t keep up.
00:13:20 [Alison]
And that’s where I was also keeping up with my I was tracking mileage in there as well Yeah.
00:13:24 [Alison]
And some of the session associated expenses.
00:13:26 [Alison]
And, yeah, you just gotta have to start small, see what works for you.
00:13:29 [Alison]
Some things to be aware of though while you’re transferring and getting in your money, like, your sales tax is not your own income.
00:13:36 [Alison]
Like, we talked about that on the money mistakes.
00:13:37 [Alison]
Like, you need to be careful.
00:13:39 [Alison]
You’re just a funnel.
00:13:40 [Alison]
It’s you gotta pull that out somehow, some way.
00:13:43 [Alison]
And then those credit card processing fees.
00:13:45 [Alison]
So I mentioned how I just subtract the the Stripe credit card fee.
00:13:49 [Alison]
Stripe actually tells it says, hey, here’s here’s what you earned.
00:13:51 [Alison]
Here’s what you brought in.
00:13:52 [Alison]
And then here’s our fee, and then here’s your net.
00:13:55 [Alison]
And so I just add up my nets and and transfer the nets.
00:13:58 [Alison]
So just make sure you’re accounting for those credit card processing fees in some way, somehow.
00:14:02 [Alison]
And then cost of doing business, you’re just gonna have to eat that.
00:14:05 [Alison]
Enjoy.
00:14:05 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:14:06 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:14:06 [Melissa]
And for mine, I just I have it set aside so it’s like a separate little a spreadsheet on my spreadsheet, it’s a separate little thing, and then then it just subtracts from my operating expense because that’s where it falls out of.
00:14:16 [Melissa]
And then, like, when it comes to taxes and stuff, by going ahead and putting that money into your tax account, then every time those quarterly taxes are due, your money’s sitting there.
00:14:23 [Melissa]
So you’re just paying it out.
00:14:25 [Melissa]
And I remember hearing, I think, in probably the book for Profit First or something, where one of the guys was saying he was like, I love when my bill comes because he was like, the money is already sitting there.
00:14:35 [Melissa]
And he said, I just I write the check, and here we go.
00:14:38 [Melissa]
And I don’t stress about it.
00:14:40 [Melissa]
And if there’s leftover, like, woo hoo, I got an extra payday, all that kind of stuff.
00:14:44 [Melissa]
And as you track your expenses throughout the year and stuff, you may be able to find, oh, I’m overpaying for taxes, especially if you’re able to Mhmm.
00:14:50 [Melissa]
Check-in with your accountant or your bookkeeper and stuff like that.
00:14:53 [Melissa]
And so just keeping an eye on that, it makes it a lot easier.
00:14:56 [Melissa]
And then with the profit account, that was a big one that I was like, okay.
00:15:00 [Melissa]
What why is there a profit account?
00:15:02 [Melissa]
And his point was, one is if you’re not profitable.
00:15:05 [Melissa]
And I was like, oh, that’s a fair point.
00:15:07 [Melissa]
So mindset pretty low.
00:15:09 [Melissa]
I think the goal is to get to 10%, and I’m at 5%.
00:15:12 [Melissa]
But even with that 5%, I just I take 5% of our income every month in the business, and I set it in that profit account.
00:15:19 [Melissa]
And then every quarter, you do a disbursement is the way they talk about it.
00:15:23 [Alison]
And I did that for a little bit, but I actually decided to just use that profit account as some savings, some business savings.
00:15:30 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:15:30 [Melissa]
And that can be a great way.
00:15:31 [Melissa]
He also talks about if you if you have credit card debt or anything like that, he talks about taking that profit money, taking half of it off to pay on the debt, and then the other part would come to you.
00:15:41 [Melissa]
Because his point is, even if you only have $5 of profit, you’re able to go down to Starbucks and maybe buy yourself probably a small drink at the blink.
00:15:47 [Melissa]
God knows how much they are.
00:15:50 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:15:50 [Melissa]
And celebrate.
00:15:51 [Melissa]
You’re like, hey.
00:15:52 [Melissa]
I’m profitable and stuff.
00:15:53 [Melissa]
I’ll take that money too, and I try to, bonus my girls and stuff Because if the business is profitable, like, they’re doing a job, I’m doing a good job, like, I wanna share that with them and everything.
00:16:04 [Alison]
Yep.
00:16:04 [Alison]
We’ve done something as simple as just take the whole which Yeah.
00:16:07 [Alison]
Six family of six in Hawaii at Yeah.
00:16:10 [Alison]
Cable service is not less than $200 ever.
00:16:13 [Alison]
Right.
00:16:14 [Alison]
No.
00:16:14 [Melissa]
And I think I bought the kids well, we did our Kings Dominion passes from Mhmm.
00:16:18 [Melissa]
My profits this year because that was it comes to me.
00:16:21 [Melissa]
Although we only get those tickets, like, once, so I’m like, next year, maybe not.
00:16:24 [Alison]
Do they have anything for Christmas maybe?
00:16:26 [Melissa]
They do.
00:16:27 [Melissa]
We’re gonna try and get out there for that.
00:16:28 [Melissa]
But just it’s so important to just establish a system.
00:16:32 [Melissa]
And then and this one is super easy.
00:16:34 [Melissa]
And it’s not
00:16:35 [Alison]
a New York Times seller bestseller even y’all.
00:16:38 [Alison]
Like, it’s Oh my gosh.
00:16:39 [Alison]
Something up there on the top.
00:16:40 [Alison]
It’s been around.
00:16:41 [Alison]
It’s not new.
00:16:42 [Alison]
It’s been around for years and years.
00:16:43 [Alison]
People are still
00:16:44 [Melissa]
on the list.
00:16:44 [Melissa]
There’s, like, 50 versions of it now.
00:16:47 [Alison]
Oh, are there?
00:16:48 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:48 [Melissa]
There are and in fact, I think there’s profit first for photographers.
00:16:51 [Melissa]
There’s profit first for creatives, profit first for accountants.
00:16:54 [Melissa]
Pretty much everyone and I noticed, like, Michael Gallo is the author, has written, like, forwards for a lot of them.
00:17:00 [Melissa]
But all of these sub industries now have their own profit first
00:17:03 [Alison]
I didn’t know that.
00:17:04 [Melissa]
And everything.
00:17:05 [Alison]
Just just read the original one.
00:17:06 [Alison]
You’ll be fine.
00:17:07 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:17:07 [Melissa]
And Donald Miller, he has a very similar so when he talks about that in one of his books, and he said he has not read Profit First because he doesn’t want Mike thinking that he stole the system from him because, I guess, they’re friends.
00:17:18 [Melissa]
But he was like, he’s got basically the same mindset of how he set up his accounts, and it turns out it’s just like Profit First.
00:17:24 [Melissa]
So there’s
00:17:25 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:17:25 [Melissa]
There’s two big people who run really amazing businesses that are that this is
00:17:30 [Alison]
what we’re profitable businesses.
00:17:31 [Alison]
That’s amazing.
00:17:32 [Alison]
So yeah.
00:17:33 [Alison]
So there it is.
00:17:34 [Alison]
If that is at all confusing to you, read the book.
00:17:36 [Alison]
If it’s at all interesting or something you may wanna implement in your own business, read the book.
00:17:41 [Alison]
We highly recommend it.
00:17:42 [Alison]
We’ll have a link for you in the show notes.
00:17:44 [Alison]
And as always, thank you so much for listening, guys.
00:17:47 [Melissa]
Bye bye.
00:17:48 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:17:50 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:17:52 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:17:54 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:17:55 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, no spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.
00:18:00 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:18:03 [Melissa]
If you have questions, you can reach out to Allison on Instagram at alison belle photog, or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect.
00:18:12 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links, and we’re so excited to have you guys here.
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I’m Melissa Arlena, founder of Picture Perfect Rankings, where we help portrait photographers get found on Google and transform from invisible experts into market leaders. With 15+ years of photography experience and an IT background, I’ve helped hundreds of photographers break free from feast-or-famine cycles by achieving page 1 rankings that attract their dream clients through search.
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