Full Transcript

Sari 0:00
The bigger your dreams, the bigger your goals, the more support you need, not less. Every great entrepreneur knows they need experts, they need a community to help support them, and connect them to really get that momentum going. If you find yourself in that start, stop, start, stop struggle, where you have an amazing idea, something you make in your home kitchen, it can be a food item, beverages, pet treats, or even body care. And you just can't seem to get it off the ground or you haven't been able to make a profit yet. I want to offer you a free workshop. It's called Whip Up A Business You Love. And in it, you're going to learn the foundational pieces of having a business that works. An idea is not enough, a desire is not enough. We need to have a foundation and a plan for your next steps. And in that workshop, you're going to get my startup checklist. We're going to talk about your product, about pricing, what that investment looks like, how to really know if you have a solid idea, or a business plan that's going to work. And I make you an incredibly delicious offer to join me in Food Business Success at the end, go to foodbizsuccess.com and in the right hand corner, you will see where to register to get that free workshop. And then I hope I will see you inside Food Business Success and on one of our Fuel calls very soon.

Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's gotta be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journeys so you can learn what worked and didn't work and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now, let's jump in!

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. All right, we are still talking about money, all things money in your business. We need to get comfortable talking about money and profit and in exchange of value. Because being in business means that you are exchanging value, you are exchanging a product for other people's money, right? And sometimes we get really hung up on words like I'm taking people's money, or even they're giving me money. I mean, essentially, we're just sharing in an exchange and sometimes reframing that can help people to feel a little more comfortable. I mean, we bring a lot of baggage into our lives around money, we don't like to talk about it, and then now you're in business, and that's all we talked about. Or at least a very good part of it once you're already launched and in business. And I think it's really important that you actually purposefully set up your business to be making a profit ahead of time. Listen, if you eventually don't have a profit: A, you have a hobby business. B, you're gonna give up. C, like having a business, having a profitable business means you can do more in the world, you can hire people, you can create more value in the world with your business. And you can ultimately, money is just a tool. You can donate it, you can help certain organizations like when you have it, you have so many more options and you can make greater change in this world which is what I know so many of you want to do. But even if you have to start really really small that I have found building in some tools to prioritize profit when you start, you're going to be set up so much better for success. And I just want to give full credit, I love the book Profit First. It is written by Mike Michalowicz , very challenging last name to spell, to say, but I think I got it right. And I highly recommend reading this book and also my other favorite book that really I based Master Your Business on is E-Myth Revisited. So these two books, if you want to dive into that or just come join me in the next Master Your Business, we are really digging into the systems and making sure that money, profitability is at the center, the core of your business. And here's why. I know that you guys have an amazing thing that you make, you know, you just want to share it with the world. Oftentimes, these start out as hobbies, their passion projects, and you're like, maybe I could start a business. Well, by definition, a business is centered around profit, right? It is an activity that you are purposefully creating profit. And there's a couple of things around mindset and human nature, the way our brains work, that if we don't prioritize profit in our business, we're actually going to be setting ourselves up to fail pretty quickly. So a couple of these pieces, and I'm actually going to be going more into this prioritizing profit in Fuel this month, in our VIP program, where I'm going to be presenting some tools that I have developed using Profit First as a model. But creating something I feel like is more appropriate for CPG, for small businesses like yourself, but what we're going to do is actually just set up the business with profit in mind. So that what happens is if we don't do this, you end up resenting your business because it's never making any money. It's always taking money from you. It's take, take, take, so you feel resentful after a while. And when there's never any money coming back in, we lose motivation, we lose traction. Why on earth would we want to keep doing something that provides us with no, you know, or very little reward? I mean, there is, of course, the reward of the delight on people's faces and all of that, but you are going to work so freaking hard in your business to get it going. So let's prioritize even just a small tiny amount of money that is profit, that is like something you can celebrate and you can be like, wohoo, right? Like, even if it's just like enough that you can go buy dinner for yourself or splurge on a little something like there is this dopamine hit when that happens that you're going to want to keep going. And I've seen it the opposite too many times where people are just like, I can't keep doing this, like this business is just taking everything, it's taking my money, my time, right? And there's very little reward so we're also using the reticular activating system of our brain or our AS, where when we are focused on profit, even if it's really small, that we are looking for it. We are, we're telling our brain that this is important. And when we do that, we start to find it, right? Have you ever, it's that this is that system that when you start to shop for a certain type of car, right? Like when I bought my Audi, I'm like, wow, there's Audi's, this model is everywhere, right? It's not that there are more Audi's on the road. It's that it all sudden became important to me because I was shopping for a particular car, certain brand, and now I see it everywhere.

Just happens all the time. When you learn a new word, for instance, right? And you're like, oh, no, I'm hearing it everywhere, right? Or I just went to this art gallery, Clyfford Stills, and I'd never heard of him before. And now because he's in my RAS because I just spent time looking at his work. I am guessing I'm going to start noticing his name or his work in a lot more places, right? It's been pulled to the forefront of my brain. And the RAS system basically is just a filtering system. It filters in your name. It filters in like loud noises. So there's a couple of things that filters in but then it filters in whatever you tell it is important. And the problem with when we start with a business, when we're only focused on top line revenue, meaning all the incoming sales that are coming in, right? That when we're only focused on that, then we tend to part there's a rule called Parkinson's Law, where it's based around time, but they've also shown that it works around money. Is that whatever money we bring in, we're actually going to spend up to that amount. It's why you feel like you can never get ahead in your budget, in your monthly like household budget even if you start making more money, like somehow the expenses just seem to rise up to however much money we're making in our household. So it's actually a little bit of a hack, right, a business hack to make profit a priority, meaning you're going to take a little bit of profit first, you're going to put that aside. And now your expenses, they're just, they have less of a space, right, there's less to move up to. And so there's a couple of other really cool brain hacks of like how we're using this to benefit us in our human nature in the way that we tend to operate, in the way our minds just go on to default. And so it's so important this way, I love this idea. I'm so glad that, so grateful that Mike wrote this amazing book. And so I just wanted to give you some food for thought around, like how could I prioritize profit even if it's just 1% of my top line revenue, right? And I set that aside, and I could actually see it growing. I implemented this method into my business last fall. And it radically changed how I looked at my business, there was more fun, there was more a little bit more of like, oh, I want to see what I can do for next month or next time, right? Like it did be a little bit more of a game, which isn't a bad thing, right? Like things that kind of keep you motivated and excited to see like, well, what about, you know, what am I going to do next time, next month? And what is this profit look like? And then you can kind of start playing around with well, what, what would be fun to do with that, right? And maybe that's just investing in a retirement account. Or maybe it's taking your family on a vacation. I mean, my gosh, if you're gonna work this hard, and give up weekends for your, you know, farmers markets, maybe this is a side hustle, right? You're gonna be taking time out of your personal life most likely. And so give yourself a gift, a little something. And I promise you, it's going to keep you more motivated, more inspired, more excited. When we see progress, we're going to want to keep going. If we just delay the progress by delaying profit. Like for some future like, well, it's not this year, but maybe in three years, I'll take a profit, you're probably not ever going to make it to three years. And because expenses tend to rise to the level of our income, those three years come and go. And then you're like, well, maybe five years, right? And so we got to set this up ahead of time, set it up first. So I am talking about this inside Fuel for March. And so if you want to join me, you can come join Food Business Success we'll be talking about there. I also touch on it in the upcoming Cottage Food Virtual Conference that I interviewed Lisa Kivirist about a couple of podcasts ago. But I am giving away eight free tickets to that conference. So if you want to get some of these tools that I'm talking about and creating around prioritizing profit, and just working your business like a boss as the conference is called, or the sorry, my workshop is called. You can go to https://go.foodbizsuccess.com/win, or I'll put the link in the show notes as well and I will announce those winners on March 28, 2023.

All right, I hope this gets you thinking about the importance of putting aside a little bit of money, focusing on profit at the beginning, setting it up as a practice, even if it's small, you will see a big change in how you approach your business. And you know, if you're just starting then do this immediately. And just have it as the practice. If you've already started your business, see if you can incorporate just a little bit where you take a little bit off the top as profit and then, you know, let the expenses be what they are. There is kind of next steps if you read the book, or some of the things that I'm sharing with you inside Fuel to optimize that, to reduce your expenses, right? Some habits and hacks around that. So hopefully I will see you inside Fuel in March. Until next time, have an amazing same week!

The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own Food Business Success.