Welcome to Unstoppable Success, where we dive deep into the world of business and finance with our guest, Mike Milan, also known as Cash Flow Mike. Today, we’ll explore the journey of transforming from a state trooper to a successful entrepreneur, emphasizing the crucial mindset shifts that led to his current success. Mike shares golden nuggets about managing cash flow, revealing how understanding the financial gap can significantly impact your business decisions. We’ll also discuss the importance of building genuine partnerships in business and how small adjustments can lead to substantial gains. So, grab your headphones and join us as we uncover the secrets to thriving in the ever-evolving landscape of entrepreneurship! The latest discussion on Unstoppable Success revolves around the journey of Mike Milan, also known as Cash Flow Mike. His story is a captivating blend of ambition and transformation. Beginning as a state trooper with dreams of entrepreneurship, Mike faced a pivotal moment when his family grew, leading him to realize his income wasn't keeping pace. With a blend of humor and candor, he recounts how he transitioned from a stable job to becoming a serial entrepreneur, tackling challenges and learning valuable lessons about cash flow and business management along the way. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the financial gap in business and how to bridge it by managing receivables effectively. Mike’s approach is refreshing; he doesn’t just share success stories but also highlights the struggles and mistakes that shaped his career. His humorous anecdotes about negotiating with large corporations for better payment terms illustrate the importance of asking for what you need and building solid partnerships. As he evolved into a business consultant, he became passionate about educating others on financial literacy, making complex concepts accessible with a dose of wit and insight. We dive deeper into Mike's entrepreneurial evolution, exploring how he successfully navigated the staffing industry and expanded into multiple businesses, including a bar and property management. His knack for identifying opportunities and optimizing operations shines through as he describes the unique challenges of managing a growing enterprise. Mike's philosophy centers on the idea that success isn't just about making sales; it’s about understanding the cash flow that sustains the business. By leveraging his experience, he created the 'Clear Path to Cash' program, empowering other entrepreneurs to make informed financial decisions. The conversation is rich with practical advice, underscoring the necessity of being proactive rather than reactive in business management. Mike’s journey is relatable and inspiring, reminding us that even the most successful entrepreneurs face setbacks and that learning from those experiences is key to future triumphs. As the episode progresses, Mike shares his transformation into Cash Flow Mike, a name that embodies his mission to help businesses thrive financially. He explores the concept of financial literacy and its significance in today’s market, especially for small business owners who often find themselves overwhelmed by financial jargon. Through engaging stories and practical tips, Mike encourages listeners to take control of their financial narratives, advocating for a mindset shift that prioritizes cash flow over mere profit. His humor shines through as he recounts interactions with bankers and the lessons learned from those experiences. This podcast episode is not just about business success; it's about empowering individuals to take charge of their financial destinies, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their financial acumen and achieve unstoppable success.

Takeaways:

1. In the podcast, Mike shares how a leap of faith from a stable job led him to entrepreneurial success.
2. He emphasizes the importance of understanding cash flow for maintaining business health and long-term success.
3. Listeners learn the significance of building relationships and partnerships in business to achieve mutual growth.
4. The discussion highlights that sales alone don’t determine success; cash flow is the key metric to focus on.
5. Mike's journey from being a state trooper to a successful business consultant showcases the power of adaptability and lifelong learning.
6. The podcast encourages entrepreneurs to control what they can and focus on their strengths to reduce stress and enhance productivity.
7. 
   

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success.

I'm your host, Jacqueline Strominger, and I am here today with Mike.

Milan.

Milan, right.

I actually should have asked you the proper way to say your last name.

Yep.

Milan.

It's.

It's just like.

Just like the song.

This land is your land, my land.

Right, well, you.

That's like, without the d. There you go.

Right.

Well, Mike is cool.

Quite a accomplished and quite successful professional.

And I want to share with you a little bit about Mike, because right now he is the business cash flow consultant.

He's actually considered cash flow Mike.

And as he shares what started out as a Persona to self to sell training services to bankers and accountants has grown into an actual business.

He has had and started a few of his own businesses besides this, a janitorial business.

He ended up going into staffing.

He's been in software, and now he's helping people and businesses and professionals be ultra successful by knowing all about their money.

So welcome, Mike, to Unstoppable Success.

Hey, live from San Antonio's Cash Flow Mike.

You're ready.

I'm glad to be here, man.

We've been communicating back and forth.

I've just been excited about jumping on with you.

Yeah.

So, you know, Mike, I tell you, you know, you know, you.

You shared with me before, obviously, you know, realizing where you were with your family, that you had to do something different, and you have had and just like, risen to great success.

So I would really love for you to actually start out talking about that mindset and shift that you had to go through when you decided, I am here at, you know, I'm.

I've got.

I've got a job, but my family has grown and the two are lining up, income and family.

So where.

Where talk about that mindset and that shift that made you take that leap.

I got, first of all, you just jump right into it.

You just go, hey, oh, yeah.

No, because I want people to know we're not talking fluff here.

We want to get to the crux of success.

Yeah.

So what many people probably don't know is that, you know, even though I've built 14 companies, most people don't expect somebody that's a serial entrepreneur to start off as a state trooper.

Right.

And that's kind of how you're like, what do you mean, what do I get?

And when people come to my courses, they go, wait a second, I'm going to learn math from a state trooper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's kind of what happens I was sitting there, I've got an MBA from Baylor University, and I'm sitting there writing a student loan check.

And that's when you realize that, hey, your family has finally outgrown your income.

So a couple different things you can do.

One, you can start laying off people in the house, right?

Like, hey, from now on, every child position is performance based.

You don't make your bed, there's points off.

We come up on your birthday.

It's like a performance review.

Are we going to keep you or not?

So, no, of course that's not an option.

But.

But one of the scary.

You talked about the mindset of the shift, and I've got to tell you, it's scary.

All right, so it comes down to, I had at the time a very safe job.

Normally when you're a state trooper, you don't get terminated, you don't get fired.

You've got kind of a career for your whole life.

And that's kind of how people go in.

When they go in, they.

They intend to stay there their whole career.

You've got a guaranteed check that comes every other week, you know, or a couple times a month.

And you've got guaranteed benefits that are pretty good.

Everything seems to line up really well for your life, except for the fact that, you know, when you outspend your income like I did, you know, so I chose to leave.

And it was a hard decision.

It was one I mulled over for two or three years.

And I wasn't, you know, and I thought about it so much that I became more unhappy with my current job than the, you know, the other way around, which is scared to jump off of my current job to something new.

So when that shift happens, when one makes you more unhappy than the other makes you scared, you're ready to take the leap.

And that's what happened to me.

It took a lot of just soul searching and prayer and conversation.

Well, the thing is, I don't know what to do.

Right.

You know, the only thing I was, I was in the army and in the National Guard.

I was a state trooper.

The only skill I really had was cleaning.

I can clean.

That's about it.

So I took that skill and, you know, became a janitorial company.

And that worked out really well.

We were doing, I think, very well for the first two years where I had almost 10 managers and we had an account manager for, for different things.

When one of my clients left the job that he managed in office and became a hotel general manager, and he says, I can't hire your janitorial company, but can I just hire some of your people?

Right.

Just on a regular basis, you know, kind of fill in gaps.

When we don't have enough people to clean rooms and those type of things, I'm going, do I got to come there and supervise?

No.

He goes, we got all the management.

I just need bodies to help make beds.

I'm like, that's a whole lot better than cleaning.

So I scripted the whole thing, right?

And it worked out really well.

I was right there in St. Louis, you know, I know you've got somebody at wash you.

I was right there in St. Louis and we became, over a three year period, the go to staffing company for Marriott in the nation.

And I opened 27 offices in nine states in three years.

It was a huge undertaking.

And when you grow that fast, there is a such thing as a phenomenon called growing broke.

You can actually outrun your own operation.

Right.

And the way you do that is you grow that fast.

I thought I could sell my way out of it.

No, no.

Because I had payroll every two weeks and I was waiting sometimes two or three months to get paid for the first invoice I ever sent.

Well, that means I got to cover three, four, five paychecks.

Well, every new account that I added actually added more debt to me right before I got paid two or three months later.

So that's where you just learn about cash flow and balancing the ins versus the outs.

And that's kind of the genesis of where I'm at today.

Or take money up front, then they generally won't.

Yeah, they generally won't.

You know, Marriott, Marriott's not in the habit.

You know, if, if, if, you know, they treat your invoice like they're buying paper towels, like going, well, I'll pay for it when I'm ready.

You know, it's so I, I'm gonna kind of go back a second.

So you got your MBA and became a state trooper?

Or did you be.

Or did you get your MBA while you were a state trooper?

Like, how did that work?

Yeah, wow.

It was a.

And while I was a state trooper and then kind of morphed into it.

Okay.

And so I'm just kind of curious too.

So when you were at your MBA program, what made you do the MBA program as a trooper?

Like, I, I I knew I, I knew I wasn't going to be a state trooper after, after about the sixth year, I just knew it wasn't going to work.

I mean, meaning long term.

And I had been approached and believe it or not, I, I'll tell you a secret I've never told on a, on a podcast before.

Trooper to lawyer scholarship at umkc, which is a full ride scholarship for police officers transitioning into law school.

And I just, I got scared and I didn't do it because, you know, I had children and those type of things and we got scared and didn't do it.

So I said, well, if I'm not going to be a lawyer, I'm going to probably go into business.

So that's okay.

So that's right.

Because I was kind of curious.

I'm like, so where did the, where did the NBA come in?

Being a trooper?

It, you know, but that also had to give you some level of, of almost like comfort in a way that, because you know that you had an education in business.

Yeah.

So here's how that started.

I took secondary and that's, this is the first time anybody's really ever asked me that question.

So that's, that's really interesting.

So the way it started is I had a skill, a specialized skill in the highway patrol called accident reconstruction.

Right.

I didn't realize I could do math until I started investigating, investigating accidents because math didn't make sense to me in school.

It was X and Y's and Z's and all these type of things.

But when they put me on a roadway and they said measure the length of this skid mark and test the, the friction of a surface.

Right?

Because grass is slicker than asphalt and those type of things.

Once I could figure out that, oh my God, math is actually what we really do.

Right.

It's something I could touch.

All of a sudden it started making sense to me.

So I actually was pretty good at reconstructing accidents.

And so much so that I had a secondary job as a, as kind of an expert witness for a few lawyers there in St. Louis.

Personal injury lawyers looking at their accident reports and giving them advice on what it is.

Well, in my secondary job, I was making $100 an hour, right.

My primary job I was making, you know, like 34,000 a year.

I mean, it was just ridiculous.

Am I going, well, this is not going to last long term if I can just talk to somebody for 100 bucks an hour at that point in time versus fighting people on Friday night for 20 bucks.

An hour.

It made sense that I knew I was going to shift at that point in time.

Yeah.

You know, I.

First of all, two things, listeners.

I, I'm hoping that you're understanding this because there's a level here of desire, clarity and passion and understanding about knowing where you want to go.

And it doesn't always have to be right in front of you at this very second.

It can evolve over time, and success is something that you're always working on.

So, you know, I would say kudos to you, Mike, because you were, you were doing something that I call mma.

You were always measure, monitoring and adjusting to where you were and looking at things to help you decide.

You know, am I bringing in enough for my family?

Am I also liking what I'm doing?

Am I enjoying what I'm doing?

And you've evolved.

And so to take us to the this now point where you're, you're in this, you've got this company and staffing, you've got offices over, and as you were sharing, you're maybe a little pennywise pound pound foolish in a sense of money coming in, money coming out.

You're.

How did you, like, what was that realization when you're like, oh my God, how do I fix this?

Hey, first of all, I'm kind of stuck on what you just said there because it took me.

I just had a conversation over the holidays about, you know, the evolution of who you are over time.

And we all kind of had the agreement that it was, you're making decisions even though you're not.

You don't know it.

It's an unconscious decision of something that happens.

You know, like I choose to change a flight.

All of a sudden the next person I meet is the person I marry.

Right.

It's, it's, it's one of those types of things where the decision was to change a flight, not to meet that person.

And I wouldn't have met that person regardless.

Well, in my case with the business, had I not chosen to go to that specialized skill, I wouldn't have seen the $100 an hour opportunity.

I wouldn't have been motivated to take that next step.

It was like you're making decisions your whole life that are actually directing you to something else or where you're supposed to be anyway or where you're going to be happiest.

So, yeah, no, it's true.

It is those decisions that take you there.

And I think it is.

There's an unconscious of measuring of what you're doing.

Am I liking what I'm doing.

Am I, can I, can I seek something out, you know, to this, like that secondary job, like how that was offered to you, somebody saw that you were doing.

Oh, maybe it was an offer.

Would you like to do this extra?

And it's a yes, I like it.

So then in your brain you're doing a little measure, monitoring and adjusting.

You may not, it may be an unconscious thing, but it does it.

It.

And the other key thing is, is that every thing that we do can be an opening to an opportunity if we're willing to see it.

But you also have to be open to seeing it.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Super cool.

So.

So anyway, you were asking about, you know, that really what I call my most paranoid phase in life, right?

When I was these, the, the most afraid.

First of all, I didn't want to have to go back to the old job, right.

So there's a motivation, not I don't want to have to go back and go.

Yeah, remember that business thing?

I resigned to go do that.

Can I come back?

I didn't want to have to do that, you know, because I told all those guys I'm going to do something great.

Yeah.

So it, anyway.

But that's when I lost sleep, right?

There was anxiety that I had never had.

You know, remember I'm pulling people over at 2 or 3 o' clock in the morning and not as anxious as I was at running a business, you know, because it was an uncomfortable feeling.

And it was uncomfortable because I didn't have the knowledge.

It was all about knowledge.

And so I had drained my savings, I had maxed out credit cards, I'd taken a second loan on the house.

Just trying to make this thing work.

All the things you're not supposed to do.

I did.

Why?

Because I was just a trooper just trying to survive on the other side.

Well, I finally, you know, said I need help.

And I went to a bank, right?

And probably like most of us, when the banker talks, you don't understand what they're saying, right?

Because they use words like liquidity, insolvency and leverage.

You know, I go, that's not words I use on the deck with my friends.

So I don't pay attention to what they are.

So.

But he drew a picture, right?

The one the banker I talked to drew me a picture and it talked about the timing of money and it talked about this concept called the financial gap.

And every business has a financial gap.

And that's theoretically the amount of time where your company doesn't have enough money, right?

And it needs what's called working capital to cover it.

Right.

So that's what working capital is really just what you have available or what you have?

Well, if you look at the math behind it, it's really just the difference between money coming in and money coming out.

Like, if I'm waiting 60 days for money to come in and I'm paying my bills in 30 days, well, then I need to have enough working capital to cover the additional 30 days.

Right.

Well, that seems so simple when you and I talk about it here on the podcast.

But when you're, you know, 30 years old trying to piece together a business, it doesn't make sense.

But when he described that as a gap, and he said the smaller the gap, the less money it takes to run your business, when he said that, I'm like, oh, I got to make that gap smaller.

And.

And there's only a couple ways to do that, you know, get paid faster or pay slower.

And so I did both, and it changed my world.

That moving, you know, just that gap to a smaller amount of time made everything easier in the whole business.

Your business will run smoother.

So it's like a weird thing I learned.

So how did you get paid faster?

I begged.

Hey, man, I'm not afraid to tell you.

I went to Marriott and remember, I told you, say, hey, you know, they treat you like paper towel invoice.

Well, what I did was I say, hey, listen, you know, you're pushing me out to almost 90 days.

They were between 60 and 90 days of waiting to get paid.

That means the work that my.

My.

My employees did in January, I was waiting till March or April to get paid.

Right.

So I went to them, said, you know, if these were your own employees, you'd have to pay payroll every two weeks like I do.

I realize that's one of the reasons you outsource is that you can, you know, stretch the payable out just a little bit more and pay a little later and keep money in your company longer.

I said, but you're really not being a good partner.

You know, I think if you just help me out a little bit, I can grow with you just as fast.

But I need a little bit of help.

And, you know, so I begged, I said, would you be willing to try to pay closer to 30 days?

Right.

That way I only have to cover two payrolls instead of six.

Well, overall, we got the whole business down to about 45 days.

But that extra month, those extra two payroll periods kept that much more money in my pocket, and it changed everything.

Just I mean keeping more company money in your mind.

Money in your company.

Right, so two things then.

So number one, you obviously, you asked, I asked, you asked.

Hand you use the word partnership.

Yeah, that's right.

Because I feel like it is a partnership.

You know, when you have that type of relationship with your clients or you're the vendor, you know, it's a partnership.

You need each other to succeed.

Right.

So listeners, that's another really, I think important thing to note too is, you know, obviously a, there's three things.

Number one, mind the gap.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, mind your, mind your gap.

Because we, we all have that gap.

Particularly if you have employees.

If you don't have employees yet, there's a different type of a gap that can be there with expenses.

But mind the gap.

And number, you know, so that's number one.

Number two is ask if you are working with somebody and you're sending them an invoice.

You've got to open your mouth.

And three, treat it like a partnership because those people, whether they're your team members or you know, somebody that you are doing business with, you guys are partners.

There is a partnership.

This is.

And to treat people that way and it changes the level of respect.

Yeah, that's, that's so true.

I mean, and, and I try to preach that now even with my clients.

Right.

It's, it's a partnership that I am so committed to their success that they can feel it.

You can, you, you know, if somebody's in or out.

Right.

You, and you can't be halfway in with your clients.

Yeah, no, and it's, you have to be in and you have to be their partner with that.

So you've got this staffing company and now what made you decide to move beyond that?

Well, all right.

So it was all, you know, when I tell the story like we just did, it seems like I just made the decision one day and walked into Marriott and they started pay me sooner.

Well, it didn't work that fast, of course.

Right.

You know, and I had a little bit of money that I had accumulated and so I'm like going, you know what I'll do?

This is a receivables based business, which means I do the work and I wait for two months or three months to get paid.

What if I added another business to this?

That's cash based business where money comes in every day instead of waiting.

So I looked at probably 15 different businesses.

I looked at flower shops, I looked at landscaping, I looked at a motorcycle repair shop.

Anywhere somebody swiped a credit card I gave you cash.

Like that'll help.

I'll have some more money coming in.

Well, I ran across this little neighborhood bar that was about three miles away from the house that was mismanaged and the guy wanted to get out of it.

And so I went in there and I just started watching and I could tell where were some of the places where that money was leaking out.

So I made an offer and, and bought a bar.

Right.

And believe it or not, that actually worked out really, really, really well because it was mismanaged.

Even more so than I thought.

No inventory controls, There was no POS system.

There was.

The manager was kind of skimming off the top in different areas.

I mean, it was, it was, it was a mess.

Right?

It was a lot of work.

I'm not going to tell you it wasn't.

But, but I walked in with cameras and a new POS system and changed the world, you know, just flipped it in in a matter of a quarter.

Well, that worked so well that I built a bar.

Then I bought a building that had a bar and apartments up top.

Had a bar, bar down below and apartments up top, down there.

And you live in the St. Louis area.

Tower Grove district is where that was.

I know where it is, but I don't live in St. Louis.

Yeah.

So the, the, the.

So anyway, I had three of them going at once.

And then once the rent started coming in from the apartments, I bought nine more buildings.

So at one point in time, I had a hotel staffing company, three bar restaurants, and a property management company all operating at once.

You know, five different companies under one umbrella type company.

And that's where it gets a little crazy.

You're like going, well, how are you doing that?

Well, I would take the housekeepers and, and have them clean the apartments as people moved out.

Right.

All the, all the restaurants had the same POS system and they were kind of the same.

It was just a repetition.

And then I had a two man repair crew for the apartments that also fix things in the restaurants.

So, my God, I just move people around.

It was just scheduling.

That's all we do is just move people around, keep people working and bring in cash in.

And that when I say, you know, collecting faster, change the world.

This is where wealth started to accumulate.

And that's where I got an offer to get bought, where somebody wanted to buy the apartments, the, the restaurants and the hotel staffing company all at once, mainly because they saw how I was moving people around.

I even had, you know, housing for the employees when they needed it.

Like, you know, it was just, it was easy.

It was easy.

Yeah.

Huh.

So.

So you were approached to sell.

Yep.

And so, but that's actually kind of interesting.

So I'm curious, like, how did that really happen?

Like, how did somebody see what you were doing?

I put, I put a feeler out.

Like, you know, I, I just thought the only way to scale was to add more locations.

I had to open new cities, I had to open new restaurants, I had to buy new buildings.

I'm like, that was the only way to scale.

Oh, my God.

Software was really starting to take off and I was seeing people make ridiculous, ridiculously more money than I was and not having to leave the office and doing it with an employee base of 10 to 20 rather than 500.

Right.

So I'm like going, man, that seems easier.

So, like, how do I get into software?

Well, so I went to a business broker and I said, well, if I can accumulate enough money, I can buy my way into a software company.

And that's what we did.

So you.

So, so that's really great.

So working with a business worker and I love this.

So a couple things that, again, huge, huge insight.

You, There are points where you actually, you know, approach people, for lack of better word, help.

Yeah, right.

You know, the business broker.

Right.

I mean, that's, you know, get taking that next step sometimes.

Usually, you know, there are people that we have, you know, in our lives that help us rise up and we can ask for the help.

There could be the people in our support.

So kudos to you for obviously working with the business broker to do that.

And so then you jump into the software company, you buy your way in, and then what?

Well, then, of course, I got to figure out how to build software.

I mean, I don't have to build it, I just have to, you know, the skill I developed for myself was being the translator between the market and the person writing the code.

Right.

You know, what is it that they're looking for?

You know, what would make this better?

So, but we were a young software company and, and, you know, nobody listens to a young software company if you're trying to get into the banking world.

Right.

It just wouldn't.

Especially back then they were still using, you know, as 400 stuff in some of these banks, like, you know, crazy old technology.

So I know what as 400 is.

Right.

But what we were able to do was say, hey, listen, I built this thing called.

It was just an hour presentation on how to talk to me, right?

How to talk to the small business owner.

Because at the time, banks were trying to figure out how to get back into lending.

Small business owners, you're like, what do you mean they were trying to get back in?

The bankers burnt the world down.

They also left the small business lending space because Dodd Frank the regulation made it just as expensive to give a $50,000 loan as a $5 million loan.

So the big banks left the space.

That's when if you go back and look, you'll see the rise of the alternative or the marketplace lender.

That's where on deck and cabbage and you know, lending club and all these things popped up because banks left the space.

Well, by 12, 13, 14, they were trying to figure out how to come back in.

And the only way to make it less expensive was to automate data collection, right?

And that's what we had done.

But in order to get known in the, the banking world, I just went and gave free talks about how to talk to small business owners, right?

And I got published at the time there was a publication called bank.com or banking.com and I wrote a, an article called how How Goliath can beat David, right?

Meaning the big banks beat the smaller one.

So it was all about the relationship.

You know, that was the one thing that cabbage and on deck and all them couldn't do is just come into your business and talk to you, right.

It's like, you know, I'd much rather do, you know, people buy people, not products, right.

A lot of times.

So I want the banker that will come in and talk to me and educate me and not use words that I talked about leverage and liquidity and, and not always sell me either.

That was the thing that, you know, I tried to push them on is stop selling every time.

Whatever the credit card offer of the month is, go in there and talk to them about their kids.

You see a photo, you buy their coffee, use their dry cleaning.

If you want to build a relationship to be a good partner, as we've.

Already talked about, right, Be a good partner and build.

And the key thing is to build the relationship.

Yeah, to build that relationship.

Because as you just said, people do business with people with people they know like and trust.

We've all heard that you have to get to the know like and trust in any business people, you know, people buy and work with people that they like and want to do business with.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And back then, video calls were awkward, you remember, like pre covered like, nobody wanted to do a video call.

Like, I don't want to be on video with these guys.

But all of a sudden, Covid forced us to do it, right?

And now second nature, right?

So you can build a relationship just on the computer screen now.

You know, the funniest thing, I'm going to take digress with it for a second.

I was in.

In a previous.

My previous life, you know, in business.

Like, and I have loved them.

And I never understood why it didn't take off so sooner.

I mean, I understand.

Like, you had to have.

Because people, like, come on, let's just hop on a video call.

I mean, everything from web conferencing, you know, I think I have had subscriptions for video conferencing companies or, you know, there's like, free conference call.

There's web conference call.

There was webex.

I mean, like, I don't know, I feel like I could name a whole bunch of them.

And I've always done it because I just always thought I would rather.

I mean, as much as I absolutely love a phone and I.

And I actually use this with, you know, actually with earbuds, but, you know, a phone to talk to people.

I love having conversations, being able to see people.

Right.

It's just like, yeah, you know.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Anyway, digress.

But it's so true.

It's like, you know, we had, you know, Covid came in and it did.

It forced everybody to get comfortable with these video calls.

So, you know, you know, we share this and I'll talk about how you became Cash Flow Mike.

I mean, where did this, you know, I mean, obviously we, you know, you shared in your.

In the.

In your what?

Your business, where your, you know, money's coming in in different crazy places, and you have to understand where it is and getting paid.

So how did you become Cash Flow Mike?

Yeah, I mean, what started with just the banks, right?

I really got interested in how banks look at money.

And they all called themselves cash flow lenders, right?

They lend on cash flow.

And I didn't know what that meant in the beginning.

Well, what it really meant means is, do you have enough money to make your loan payments?

Is basically what it is.

So I'm like, oh.

So I built another presentation.

Remember, that's the only way I could really get into software is just talk to people.

So I was more on the customer success, client success, sales side.

But I built this thing about translating to the business owner, like, going, hey, here's what we can do.

Because after Dodd Frank, there was this thing called Community Reinvestment act credit, which means banks have to spend a certain portion of their assets into community reinvestment products or services, whatever.

Well, a lot of them write checks to Habitat for Humanity and those type of things.

And you'll see them, they all go take a picture and they'll do the thing, they'll give a check.

And that's awesome, right?

I mean, being able to reinvest in the community, to build new houses and those type of things.

Well, there's a subsection of that clause that says they can invest in financial literacy programs.

Right.

In their own thing.

So they can bring in business owners and if it's financial literacy, that helps invest, right.

Well, I put together a program that I call the Clear Path to Cash that just talk to the business owners on how to talk to the banker.

Right?

What I was doing with the banker, to me, I just flipped it and says, here's how you talk to the bank.

Because I had spent enough time with them now to speak business owner language and translate it to banker language.

So they, the banks would put in 30 to 50 people in a room and I would just talking to business owners.

And that's how I kind of got known for being able to talk to people.

And I was invited to come speak at the graduate school banking at the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington.

And that kind of went off.

And then I got invited to be on the faculty at the graduate school banking at lsu and I'm still on the faculty at the graduate school banking at the University of Colorado, which means I now teach bankers how to talk to business owners.

Right.

That's kind of back full circle, right?

But it was at the University of Colorado.

I'm walking down the hallway and there's two bankers, you know, leaned up against the wall.

Now, don't think banker like in a suit and all that.

They're in college, right.

But.

But they're like executives in banks.

So they got their hat on backwards and T shirts and shorts and flip flops and, you know, and I won.

They're like at an executive program.

They're in an executive program.

It's.

These are like three year programs that you can only get into if you're either in an executive position or if you're, you know, being groomed for president or CEO of a bank.

Right?

So they're executive programs.

Well, I walk by down the hallway and two of the guys goes, hey, there goes cash flow.

Mike, am I going you guys making fun of me?

I couldn't tell if they were making fun of me or not.

So they go, no.

They said, you're the only instructor who ever comes in here and stops talking about profit.

And you only talk about, you know, cash and cash flow.

He goes, what they said was what you said one day where sales doesn't matter.

Florida's, because we always think of more sales.

More whatever.

I said, no sales.

You know, Remember, my thing is every sale was going to dig me a bigger hole.

But I said sales is only a measurement of how much work you do.

You want to pay attention to gross profit because that's the cash you can spend or put in your pocket.

Gross profit is the most important number on the income statement, bar none.

Sales just tells you how much work you did.

So I can make the same amount of money at any sales level.

So anyway, and I prove it with math.

So when they said cash on Mike, it just kind of stuck.

And you ever hear one of those things, you're like, oh man, it just.

That's pretty good.

I'm going to lean into that now.

The hardest thing about being cash on Mike today is I had to get over the embarrassment of calling myself Cash on Mike.

Like, oh, yeah.

So, so I made my daughter call me Cash on Mike for a while.

So I get used to hearing it.

That's.

But so the couple things, I mean, it's true.

It's like I, I feel what you did and what you are doing is that you're teaching people how to be real and what, and you're.

And, and understanding, as you said, it's not always about the sale.

Right.

Sales.

You, you.

Sales obviously matter in the sense that you need them, but you need to understand your cash flow.

You need to understand where the money's going, where the money's coming in and out of, and how to actually best use it.

Yep, yeah, exactly.

Right, right.

Right.

So, but during that time, I wrote a book.

I wrote a book called don't be a Dumb Business Owner.

And dumb didn't mean unintelligent.

It means I don't understand my business.

Right.

And it was all these eight steps to maximizing cash in any business.

So that kind of took off.

And from that I had a spin off book that I called the seven Minute Conversation.

And the seven Minute Conversation is how to analyze any company's financial statements in seven minutes or less.

Right.

And I can teach Anybody how to do it, unless, you know, matter of fact, I got a free course on the website that you can just go get it and learn how to do that technique.

And I call it the home run financial system because it touches all the bases, right.

Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement in simple math that we can all do.

And that worked out well.

So when I was doing that, I was asked to come give talks.

I was at a national speaker at the Small Business Development Centers, you know, their conference.

Banks were still calling me in to give, you know, talks.

And I was speaking at some accounting conferences and those type of things.

Well, from there I had these accountants say, can you teach us how to do what you do?

Because they just saw how I looked at the financial statements differently.

And I'm a firm believer that if you change what you look at, you'll see different things.

Yeah, right, right.

No, it's.

Right, it's like the same thing.

It's like if you do, if you want to see a change and it's like, you know, they always say the definition of insanity is do it.

Keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

But you have to look at something and do something different.

So you have to.

If you can look at things differently and from a different angle, you'll see things differently.

Exactly.

Right, Right.

So I changed that book, don't be a Dumb Business Owner into a, A training program with videos and worksheets and spreadsheets and all that type of stuff and start selling it to accountants and business owners and those type of things.

And, and from there I'm like, well, I got a software background.

Why don't I take all this spreadsheets and worksheets and turn them into software?

So I built an app called the Clear Path to Cash, which is now morphed into an AI powered advisory.

Right.

So it's, it's.

I think it's the first one that's out there like it is because it goes all the way from analyzing debt to cost cutting analysis to, you know, actually what to do next.

Right.

Giving you advice on what to do next.

So it's kind of taken off where accountants that want to be in advisory services now have a tool because there wasn't one on the market that does it.

I absolutely love that.

So if you could give somebody one tip, I know there's quite a few, but there's a lot of good things that has helped that you say this has helped me be successful, what would it be?

It came from my grandpa, you know, and it's control what you can control.

Because I would get spun up on things that I thought were happening in or around my business that I had no control over.

And it was, I was just going to have to react when it happened.

Well, I was trying to fight battles that hadn't even happened yet.

You know, it's like, it's like when you put together a pricing program and you're trying to cut off all the ways people can cheat.

Right?

Like, well, they're going to share passwords, they're going to do this, you know, and you're trying to figure out how to keep people from cheating the program.

And he finally says, why nobody's cheated it yet.

You know, wait to see how they're trying to cheat it and then build a rule around that, like going, oh, yeah, that's easier.

So control what you can control is the best advice I ever got because it just made all my stress go all the way down and I started focusing on the things that I was really good at.

Yep, I absolutely love that.

And key thing is focusing on the things that you're really good at and you can hire out the other things.

Right?

Yeah, that's what I do.

Yeah.

Right.

So, you know, Mike, I could talk to you for absolutely hours because I think this is absolutely fascinating.

And I absolutely love the, I love helping people understand the money part because it's so important.

So tell our listeners how they can connect with you and get more of all of your greatness.

Yeah, I think the easiest way, I mean, if you put cash flow, Mike, into anything, something will pop up for you to connect with me.

But the easiest way is my website, cashflowmike.com spelled just the way it sounds.

Right.

And right underneath the title is a free course called the seven Minute Conversation.

Right.

It costs you an email address and you'll get some emails from me, but you get a, an hour long video course about how to analyze financial statements.

You get the worksheets, you get a copy of the book, the seven Minute Conversation comes with it.

So well worth the email address price to be able to get that.

I have a free Facebook group where I do a lot more things.

I've got YouTube channels, I've got three books on Amazon.

I got a podcast called Mike and Blaine.

You know, it's, it's one of those things that, you know, I'm, I'm everywhere.

I'm not.

I'm probably the one that can't hide from, from the Internet right now.

Off the grid for casual Mike.

I love it.

All right.

So listeners, do me the favor.

I said please, please, please go to Mike's website and I will actually also have it in the show notes.

But go to his website and go to Cash Flow.

Mike, do the free course.

Give him your email address.

It's a small cost and if you're, you know, you're probably like a bunch of other people, you have a few of them.

So give, give them one of them.

And then do me the other favor of hitting subscribe and sharing this episode with a business owner or professional that you know so that they can also get this great wisdom because we've talked about some great insights and great knowledge.

And the more that we can help other people learn and grow and be unstoppable and have unstoppable success, the happier the world will be.

So I'm Jacqueline Strominger, your host.

Thank you, Mike, for being an amazing guest and listeners.

Thank you for listening.

You're the best.

Thank you.