Ep 301 - Replay - Electrician Cash Management Secrets

0:03 hello and welcome to Electropreneur Secrets, the electricians podcast. We're here with you five days a week to help you. Master pricing, master pricing. I did it, joe. I dropped it, master simplify pricing. You know what we're at a premium level service. As you know, we got rid of the fancy shit. I say the intro and outro every day and sometimes I joke about eventually messing it up. Today was that day. I think I think it rid of the fancy shit. I say the intro and outro every day and sometimes I joke about eventually messing it up. Today was that day. I think it was semi-intentional, subconscious level, intentional here's why I said master pricing. And today, what are we talking about, joe? We're actually talking about money today. Talking about money, so that kind of made sense. Today, we are mastering pricing and simplifying sales.

0:46 How about that? It works, it'll go. How are you feeling today, by the way? I'm feeling great because we were talking about what songs remind us of money, and the only thing that's come on top of mind is Pink Floyd. I love it. Yeah, absolutely yeah. That's what was ringing in my head too, but before that you were singing money, money, money, oh, hitting the high notes. There he is, even with the cold. Joe how is the cold doing you surviving? The man cold sucks, not gonna lie, it's not fun. Some people are like, oh, it's just a headache, and then you're like vomiting into a waste paper basket, which isn't fun.

1:28 So you know what the point is. I'm here, I for showing up here, presenteeism, sick or not, here to help us in our journey to master sales simplify pricing and deliver premium level service. I got it right that time. As you guys know, we're just a couple of master electricians with business addictions here to help you out. And today, as joe said, talking about money, money is a great thing. Can be a very scary thing, can be a very painful thing, can cause a lot of emotion, can cause a lot of problems.

2:16 But whoever said money is evil, I disagree. Money is just a tool, right, and there's so much else in our life that can hold a magnifying glass on the problems that come from money. But ultimately, when we truly accept and get to know it as just a tool, then we can receive it in abundance and get rid of this scarcity mindset. So I want to kick this off with that little kick of knowledge, but also in saying have you ever heard this before? Cash is trash, cash flow is king. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. What do you think about that statement, joe?

2:57 So people sometimes say like cash is king, because they try to say like it's an old style of money concepts where you could say, oh, I give them cash and they're going to give me a discount, or they're not going to tax me or they're not going to. Everyone assumed that cash was great. But if you're sitting on a pile of physical paper money, you are literally losing out significantly on interests, on flexibility, on liquidability and even inflation inflation what is inflation right now? what are we shooting for in the states this year? oh, god, I was gonna say, I mean, if you told me that inflation was anywhere between eight to eleven percent, I wouldn't, I wouldn't blame you right it's crazy, and in some other places, our website developers currently working on argentina 9% a month.

3:46 You can believe that. So there are worse economies, people. Now we're not here to just be doom and gloom, but that said, cash is depreciating yeah it's really not what it used to be and if you think about it, it's also a very big liability Because if you think about it, let's say you had I'm going to round numbers right. Let's say you had a million dollars in cash. Very few of us do. Let's even go down further. Let's say you had $100,000 in cash and you had it in your facility and something burned, Believe it or not. You don't just get the money immediately. You have to file for that, You've got to go through insurance and you've got to prove that that money was there and that you're not doing some sort of insurance fraud.

4:29 So what you thought was a huge flexibility, you're actually down to zero and you have to fight to get it back, Whereas if it was an FDIC or federally insured account and something happens, the government will back it up. So cash is not something I want to carry anymore. Right Now, even if we were to be smart, maybe safe with that open a savings account. Guys, if you're thinking, mike Michalowicz, profit first, don't worry, we're going to get into all sorts of that stuff today too. But if you're one of those thinking, hey, savings, high interest yield, I'm going to safely invest my money in a place where I still have control. It's linked to my account, I can continually contribute there and maybe have a 2% to 4% yield, maybe 5% in extreme circumstance.

5:17 We still have to recognize well, that's better than sitting at nothing. It's not currently beating inflation, so that money is still losing value. That doesn't mean these efforts are fruitless, though, does it. Correct, because if you were to take just any money and go to your local bank and you were to put it into some regular savings account, you're going to get like 0.08% interest. But how many people you mentioned earlier to get like 0.08% interest? But how many people you mentioned earlier the online high yield accounts? You want to talk about what those even are? Yeah, sure Dig into it a bit. Yeah, I was going to say so. A lot of us remember banks being brick and mortar stores, whether Chase or Bank of America or whatever it is.

6:01 You physically went to a location, the money was in that location. You physically went to a location, the money was in that location, you put a withdrawal in and they gave it to you. That's really what it was. But because there's so many logistical concerns in running a business, which a bank technically is they had to pay the rent, they had to pay the lights, they had to pay the staff, there's all those things that go into it. So, as a result, you lose out on the interest. Now that online banking is such a common thing, there is something known as high yield interest accounts. They're usually FDIC, which is federally insured lines, meaning that if the government or if something were to ever happen where that money tanked or we had a real problem, the government actually, if something were to ever happen where that money tanked or we had a real problem, the government actually insures it against calamity.

6:49 But the benefit is, because they're not brick and mortars, they don't have those same expenses that go into running it. There is very little staff, there is no physical store, so the interest that they are able to give you is significantly higher, like, if you're talking, 0.08% as typical bank. Most high yield interest accounts are at three to 5%. Think about that. Three to 5% for just sitting there, that's crazy, right, significant. Now, I think, the challenge becomes for a lot of us well, what if there's not much sitting there? Ah, and here lies the challenge, right?

7:30 So, ahead of that, cash savings and having that interest yield high interest or other we actually do need to master this cash flow principle. Possible. Hence why pricing? Simplified pricing, one of the things we help with, ensuring that you're increasing rates to amount that's stimulating your supply and demand balance for your service. And guess what, if there is no demand, up the service, and that too will come. There's a few problems. I'm unpacking here, though, and maybe too much, but let's just start with the cash flow issue, because so many contractors are facing this. Joe, yeah, you're coming in end of the year and it says, hey, we've got 150K, maybe 200K in profit, but then you look at your accounts receivable and you're owed 250K, which means you're sitting on a big old nothing at that point.

8:25 Breaking even, unsure when that money's coming. It was net 90 and now they're not answering your calls. This is not a rare occurrence. We're talking to people that are in this situation every week of the year and that is some of the crap that comes with projects. It's unfortunate. The last time I ever hear people brag when doing a project and don't get me wrong, I'm a project guy, invested pmp project manager, right here in the flesh. I've gone to university for training and projects but it never did give me that fulfillment. And the last time you ever hear someone brag about a project is when they receive the award and they brag about that big revenue number.

9:07 Ah, we got a million dollar project, we're booked for the year. But think about all the inherent risk with that. Likely net 60 to 90 terms, right, so you're doing today's work, tomorrow's work, the next two to three months work without any pay. So you got to float that on your back. Right, demand for extra insurance, just in case. Right, larger workforce, lesser training and quality for that larger workforce. Less reviews, less diversity of customers and we've talked about that before. How do we get rid of risk Diversification If one client owes me a million dollars, isn't that kind of risky?

9:53 Yeah. Because the thing is is all it takes is that customer to give you a problem, and now all of your money is in one basket, whereas instead of going and this is why I went into residential service rather than go into heavier, into commercial or new construction or industrial was because if you had one job that gave you $100,000, I would actually rather 10 jobs that gave me $10,000. Because all it takes is one to bust, bust, and I still have the other 90,000. It's ready to go, but if that $100,000 job busted, we'd be screwed. In fact, actually, can I talk about a personal experience where that actually is relevant?

10:36 Absolutely. So there was a period of time when we actually wanted to get into heavier commercial, specifically because of this chasing the big revenue, and one of the biggest presentations I did was for a $500,000 actual awarded job and it was a chemical factory and we were going through we're checking everything out and we're like two months into this bid at this point and I had escalated it further by getting it to the person who actually could sign the check or face-to-face with them, and we actually were going to get it awarded. That was the thing. They were like yes, we're really strongly considering you and one other person, but when I realized that there was a huge risk if they didn't actually pay or us having to front it because they weren't going to give us a deposit and all that, we actually backed out and said you know what, this is not an opportunity we want to consider at this point.

11:27 And they said you actually were going to get the job. Wow. But the fact was that I'm so glad that I didn't take it, because we ended up filling the entire calendar for the whole year with other projects and it actually ended up being one of our most successful years getting out of commercial and it actually ended up being one of our most successful years getting out of commercial. You know what there's this saying, and it says it goes like this Humans are endlessly capable of recognizing what you lose when doors close. I did the wrong gesture there. When doors close, yep, but we're infinitely incapable of recognizing what opportunities may come from closing those doors and opening others.

12:07 We do not know. It's called loss aversion. It's the very thing that keeps us at the casino. God, that's just when you can see it and you still know there's just an opportunity right there. You'll just keep digging deeper and deeper, and deeper and deeper. Or imagine being in that place and then going well, all we need is another big project, excuse me. One other big project would solve this because they'll pay us in a more expedited manner. Guys, if you're going through this, can I just say I've felt these pains, I get it and I feel for you right. My first business suffered deeply from this. Deeply Huge problems, right, we talked about that on a different podcast.

12:50 Cash flow, diversity in clientele this is the same thing mutual funds do with the stock market Diversify risk by going through a variety of different investments. If you looked at your clients like investments, well then we're back to what you just said. Right, you have diversified risk. More chances to have optimal outcomes, more chances to have optimal reviews, more chances to have optimal and organic referrals. Good neighbor program If you really put your mind to this service game, so many opportunities come from every single call, every single job.

13:33 Please jump on it, yeah. I actually want to stitch even further into this and I don't want to go too far down. But it also I look at it almost like compounding interest, because if I have a one job and I do that job perfectly, what are the odds that commercial facility is going to refer me to another commercial facility? Not really. They're going to keep me under lock and key, Like they are going to be, like you are our guy. It goes like this here's what went well. Yeah, yeah, that's fine, let's move on. Here's all the things we can improve on next time to make it better, faster, cheaper. So you're in that circumstance where you get this job and even batting a thousand, the best thing you get is another job from the same people, whereas if I were to have 10 customers and each one of them gives me a good one, I still again have 10 other customers, but with residential they're going to refer you to other people and you have the opportunity of getting a compounding interest from it, where if I get one client and that client gives me two clients and that client gives me two clients.

14:39 Suddenly now I'm sitting on a thousand clients. didn't even realize how I got there and we just came full circle and bridging to a very important aha moment. If you land a million dollar commercial job today and we've all accepted and agreed, there's roughly a 10% inflation happening. Doesn't that contract suffer? Say, it's a year-long contract, doesn't that contract suffer the same inflation? So by the time you're done and getting paid for that old money plus net 90, you could be 12% shy in the value of that cash flow at the time that you receive it. And that's insanity.

15:20 Who would bill in for that? right. Do you have to bill in for inflation into your bids at this point? I mean, technically, you should. Now, speaking of this cash flow problem, right, we've already established hey, this is monopoly night with the family. You run out of cash. Close your eyes, you're going to bed early. That's how it, right? Your business needs cash. Your personal finances need cash. Call it a money, b money and c money we'll get back to that in a moment. But this cash flow, the nice thing about a business and the only other thing I'll touch on here is, uh, real estate. These are two investments, two assets that produce cash at today's rate.

16:00 So this is big support for the service game, because if I can do a job today that only takes today at my full rate, that I've reassessed every quarter since I've been in business to make sure that I'm always charging what my business needs to grow and be sustainable. That's cash flow, joe, isn't it? And it's the best kind because it's managed cash flow. Now add one more thing to this your favorite 50% upfront for a job we're going to book just a week from now. Two weeks from now. Now what's happening? The benefit there and I love that you put me on the tee for this one because I love talking about deposits.

16:45 So what you're doing is you're getting paid in advance, but you can take that and allocate it to other things. So let me give a practical example of how this applies. So we've always talked about generators and that's a consistent thing that comes up. But the benefit of getting deposits on generators is that it's a capital improvement, which means that your customer has a situation where they're not being taxed on any of the services that go into play when you do the initial installation. So, following that logic, what you can do is you can actually package all the upgrades, all the enhancements and all the maintenance packages under one bulk quote.

17:29 Get it qualified for capital improvement. The customer is actually not paying tax on future services and they are more incentivized to give you a much larger deposit than they normally would have been. If they say I'm going to go year by year, you're the only one losing because you're paying one inflation rate. Two, you're paying tax on it. So am I wrong to want to save you that kind of money? And the answer is always no, you're not wrong. Here you go. Yeah, man, I love the way your brain works. So again, man, full circle. Cash is trash, cash flow is king. We got that Today's rates. That's important. If we can get paid today during today's value of money, currency, then this is a win, isn't it?

18:15 Damn right, awesome, okay. So here's the thing we were going to talk about, and tie in this principle of A money, b money, c money. I wouldn't be doing justice if I didn't do that. I may have said this before, but hang with me, guys, because this one is important. It will actually change your life, as it did mine. A money, that's today money. That's what's putting food on the table roof over your head. It's the money that you're earning and then you're spending just on survival needs, physiological needs. Right, b money? B money is the money we're investing our little cash, soldiers to go make money for us. Mutual funds, the high interest yield accounts, any stocks, any other investments you're making, even real estate could be considered B money if you're in a passive position with lots of cash and someone else is doing the work.

19:07 But then there's C money. C money is really important because that's the money you invest in yourself, your own growth. This is the money that you may have heard some of your own mentors say that's the stuff they can't take away, that's the stuff that pays dividends for a lifetime. Like us, many people may wonder how we came about the knowledge that we have the sales that has been achieved, the growth that happened here for a couple of young master electricians with business addictions. And it's that business addiction piece, it's that constant event investment in C money. Would you say that you made up most of this sales, joe, or did it cost you a little bit to get here?

19:51 It cost me an insane amount of money to get here, because, when you think about it, it wasn't just going to conferences and traveling and listening to podcasts. There was a lot of that that was going into it. But I was also really invested in schooling and getting personal mentorship from anyone who'd be willing to talk to me, and because I needed so much help. Also, therapy is training as well. It's making you better people, and I wouldn't be the person I am if I didn't invest years and years and years into therapy. So that's been years of coaching yourself too right. Yeah, I've been coached for over seven years just doing it from one or two personal trainers, like that's the thing.

20:34 It's one of those scenarios where, if you don't put money into the machine, the wheel doesn't turn and you always need to be rolling the wheel forward because life moves in one direction. Either you're moving with it or it's going to move without you. So what are you taking away from it? So this becomes a really interesting conversation and some of you this becomes a really interesting conversation and some of you I expect to go holy fuck, that makes perfect sense. I've had people, when I explain this for the first time on a call, go their mouth open and go oh my God, Wow, I never realized that. So I really want to help you guys with this. If you have a business, you have a tax advantage, right?

21:20 My accountant always says this You're making money, You're paying tax. It's a good sign. Never feels like a good sign. Never feels like a good sign when I'm giving you a tax Never feels like a good sign. Here's your tax advantage. It's actually a timing advantage, guys. Let me explain this to you very simply. It's the best I can do as an employee. You earn, your employer decides okay, this is what you've earned for said period. They tell the government what those earnings are, they agree on following the income tax tables and they deduct what you owe the government and then pay you what's left. So you earn, they deduct, you get what's left.

22:01 Doesn't feel like a lot of fun In business or even as a sole proprietor. Some people get in trouble with this because they don't save for taxes. You take everything you spend, you have your expenses. You pay the balance of tax off your profit to the government. So if you don't save that, if you don't have an accountant working with you, people tend to get in trouble and then the next year they go. It's almost like you wanted me to save my taxes. They did, they did. You had that advantage. It's a tax timing advantage. This is why accountants can be the difference and save you tens of thousands, maybe for some businesses, a hundred plus thousand dollars a year.

22:43 Let's talk about the expenses. For a second, though. There's one line item in particular that ties perfectly into C-Money. It's called professional development. You, as a business owner, can invest from your company into yourself. You can spend right, and here's a real double benefit. People in our program. They put a certain number there, and the number I recommend is actually $30,000 a year for your personal and professional development. Why? Because if you have that number there and you, honest to God, spent $30,000k a year, where are you going to be in 10 years? I've spent about 200k on my personal and professional development.

23:26 What would you if you had to guess joe, where are? you at oh, let's see, and while you're calculating, yeah, give me a second, because I'm going to give you an actual number. I'm just going through in my head so here's the crazy tax benefit, though that that was not out of my personal pocket. I didn't earn money after the government took their share and then pay $200,000. I earned money through my companies, offset by having them write it off as an expense, and they trained me through the various coaches, trainings, academia, mba program, pmp, project management, all the stuff that I've done over the years leadership trainings that was all tax deductible.

24:10 So the savings is right around 30 to 40 percent, depending how much you're taking personally in a year. That is a massive, massive lever in your life. And here's the added bonus, as I began to mention if you take that 30k a year, 25k a year, whatever you're comfortable with there, add it to your burdens and when you're solving your rate now that's on the back of each and every customer that invests in your business, because they're not just clients, they're stakeholders. When someone puts cash into your machine, they become a stakeholder. They've got a ticket. They share, hold the value of your business and your goodwill, and so every person, in every hour that they hire you, every billable hour, is contributing to your professional and personal development.

25:01 That 30, 25, 30k a year, and so in 10 years your company is going to be the exact kind of business that they would still stand behind. Oh my God. Okay, joe, tell us. I got the numbers. So going through just basic and I say about seven years of training, going to events, studying under teachers, going to college, going to trade school, just rough numbers. I'm around anywhere from $135,000 to $145,000 in personal investment. Not bad. I want to see that go up by about 70K in the next year or so. All right, sounds about right. So, guys, you're getting the point here. That's C money. No one can take that from Joe. You guys listen to him. Five, that's c money.

25:41 No one can take that from joe. You guys, listen to him five days a week. No one can take that from me. Listen to me five days a week. Barring any cataclysmic events, my c money will take me right to the, the age that I absolutely want to work until, and that's undecided. I'm not sure I need to. Maybe I get my Mexican villain three years, not eight. I'm not sure. Joe, I'll probably be contributing to this community till I'm 80. You know, honestly, I have my health. I wouldn't want to do anything else because, if you think about it and I don't know if this is going off topic but this industry has given us so much and one of the reasons why we're so invested into it is because we feel like if we don't put into it, who will right All these years of training and skill and knowledge and sales and all that great stuff?

26:31 If we just sit on it, we're no better than dragons just sitting on a pile of gold. We need to share what we've been given and that's why we're here five days a week giving you guys a free podcast where you can learn from us without putting a single dime into it, and I'm grateful to be in that situation where I can help you guys absolutely. You know what. I know we talked about going into uh, profit first, it might be a second. I mean we're gonna have a series of of cash. I'm down. There's so much and, and I fear, always overwhelming people with information in a single one. But suffice it to say, just as an intro to that one guys, I love mike mccallowitz and his books and everything you guys done a brilliant mind.

27:13 I appreciate, um, brilliant minds. I do, especially as a business strategist junkie Like I just live for this stuff. But you know, if you're familiar with his book, then you're familiar with having five bank accounts. That's one place that I tend to pivot a little bit in the recommendations I have for our clients and friends inside and outside of the group, just because complexity is the enemy of execution and most business owners are struggling with their one to two accounts. Really it's overwhelmed, right. So until you have that help, until you have systems in place, that can be a bit much. He's got some great principles, such as the 90-day nest egg and then how to profit share from there and some of that stuff that's just going to be so fruitful.

27:59 I think this is just me teasing it. I think we got to save that for a second episode. What do you think? I think that would make a lot of sense because, like going into, well, what are those accounts? What are they there for? Like, why would you want a tax account? Why would you want a material account? Why would you want like, there's so much that goes into it, you're right, there's so much that goes into it, you're right. Unless we're sitting here with an hour or two hour long episode, it's not going to be worth getting into right away. It's not today, but you guys, I trust that you got some significant value from what we've already talked about today. I want to give you a little bit of guidance out of this and not just dissect a problem and leave you there. See, money was a huge takeaway, granted, but if we touched on a big problem here today and I got to give a little bit of solution for this, if you are a contractor who's currently stuck in the debt of cash flow, stuck in AR land, unable to collect guys, there's a couple nuggets for this, okay.

28:57 One is if there are people that are just ghosting you, they owe you money. I don't care if it's a small client, a big client, anyone. They are just people. And so I got to give you this little action, this little tactic. It's annoying to you to even have to reach out. No one likes to impose. I'm mad at them. They owe us money, they're ghosting us. I don't even like talking to them. I just want to be rude. I want to yell at them. That's not going to get us anywhere. I get all these feelings. Why are they dogging us? But I can promise you a couple of tactics will really help you out in this situation. One is consistent outreach. If you can't do it, hire someone to do it. That's how collection debt collectors get paid.

29:39 They to do it. That's how collection debt collectors get paid. They do not quit. They're relentless. And you should be relentless too, because the only person more annoyed by this debt than you is them. And that may seem backwards because they're not the ones owed the money, but that weighs heavy on a conscience when they're not paying. Gum bags are not. So I would would follow up, follow up, follow up, follow up. And here's a little hack for a bigger company If it's just a bookkeeper over there and if you're, you know, maybe you're an equal size or maybe you're smaller this can be a tactic that I've seen work in the past is actually to recognize that it's just a person over there managing the books. And what happens when it's just an hourly employee is they just handle things in the order that they're received, and this is typical of a net 90 business, a machine that's honestly just in constant AR and AP.

30:30 Ar and AP just paying bills and receiving checks. Paying bills, receiving checks they're in the same battle, but they're bigger and so they're used to it and it doesn't impact them as much Does that make sense? It really, really does. So pick up the phone, grab it and phone over and talk to Stacy, talk to the gal, talk to the guy whoever it is in charge of that and just say this or get your wife or get your CSR or admin, get someone to call and say this hey, sorry, I'm new here and I need to ask a favor. I've made a mistake on one of our other bills and that's left us short of cash.

31:11 I see that you guys owe us. We've got 60K in AR and I know that we're net 90 and it's only 70 days in. But is there any way I could take you for lunch and you could help me out here? I'm new and I'm just. This is a big mistake. Is there any way you could speed up that payment cycle for us? For us this time? A lot of times, as I say, you get more bees with honey a lot of times. That will do it. It's a person in charge of that. You need to speed up the cycle. It's that simple. So that's a big action I wanted to give today, as well as, of course, the consideration that, if you're in this situation, you keep ending up in this situation.

31:54 Have you considered service have you considered? only suggest you should. Okay, did I tee you up for any action items there, joe? I know I kind of went just off the cuff there, but so I actually have one off my mind and I'm not sure if it qualifies as either an extra or an all-star. Can I just take a shot at it? yeah, yeah, throw it out there anything that brings you joy, you can use to generate income with or, if nothing else, you can actually get that knowledge to move your goals forward. And let me explain what I mean by that. So I have a lot of unusual interests. It just comes with being neurodivergent. But the two that particularly come to mind is I love studying languages and I love studying cultures and theologies, and you would think that that's not something that would ever make you money, right?

32:47 You're like oh well, it's like studying philosophy. No one's going to get paid from that. But yeah, you can see where I'm coming from here. But by understanding languages, I can respond to people in their language that they're most comfortable with, or at the very least, I can respond to people in their language that they're most comfortable with, or at the very least I can often understand it, because I understand a sister language and it allows you to have an inside gap when people are speaking. That could you see. If someone were going to talk in another language at the table, that I could benefit if you know what they were saying. Absolutely. I think it is. Or if you're studying theology and it's tied directly to a culture or a particular group of people, would it not help you to understand how that culture chooses to operate and the foundations in which they've built that culture?

33:35 Would that not help you find a way to bond and connect? Could you not share over scripture things that you enjoy? Would that not help you find a way to bond and connect? Could you not share over scripture things that you enjoy? Would that not help you bond with your clients? Oh, I think so Anything that you love, when you can properly learn about it, you can find that it will assist you. If you're willing to look at it from a larger, 30,000 foot view 100%. And you know what? I think that was the all-star action and the underlying, undeniable message there is invest in yourself, guys. Look down that line item, look down your P&L and look for that line item professional development and you tell me what number is beside it.

34:17 If it's a zero, zero, then I want you to answer a second question where are you going? Where are you growing, guys? This has been an incredible insightful cash secrets for electricians episode, as we help you, as we always do five days a week here to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service, and today's episode is going to help you stay afloat, grow and sustain that dream of yours as well. Joe, thanks for joining us and for all the tips today. Guys, we'll see you again tomorrow, looking so forward to it.