Tim Seymour, Deb Halliday, and Jason Withers reflect on the success of the 5 Friday Profit First Challenge in The Profit First Pathway community. They share how the five-week format gave participants the time and structure to dig into Profit First principles, apply them in real life, and see measurable improvements in their businesses.

From exploring the true meaning of real revenue to prioritising owner’s pay, the conversation highlights the power of accountability, structured learning, and quality clients in driving sustainable profitability. With strong feedback from attendees, this episode celebrates a challenge that turned insights into action.

Takeaways:

• A five-week structured approach allowed participants to reflect and take meaningful action.
• Real-life tasks kept learning practical and directly applicable.
• Increased accountability led to clearer financial understanding and better decision-making.
• Owner’s pay is essential for long-term business health and personal profitability.
• Understanding real revenue (not just sales) is key to sustainable growth.
• Participant feedback praised both content and structure, with many eager to implement strategies immediately.

Foreign.

Welcome to Profit first beyond the Book, a podcast that takes you beyond the book with Profit first, brought to you by Tim Duncan and the rest of the Profit First Professionals UK and Ireland team.

And today I am joined with Deb Halliday and Jason with us again as we review our recently completed Profit First Challenge within the Profit first pathway.

So welcome to both of you.

Morning.

We still need to practice these intros, I tell you.

Never mind.

It's all good fun.

So, so we've, we've completed the Profit First Challenge that we ran recently and we ran this over five Fridays.

In fact, we were just talking about how this Friday we can actually not go on a call and actually do.

What we want to do on a.

Friday for a change, which is what we actually prefer to do generally, isn't it?

So, Jason, how did you find the whole challenge?

What are your thoughts in summary before we go into detail of each session.

That we went through?

I think one of the things that I liked about it was that each session was very defined about the topic that was being discussed.

The fact that we had sort of real life applications for each week, but we also had plenty for people to think about and go away and actually reflect on that topic within their own practice, within their own business.

And I think that there are these moments where we see this list of things to do ahead of us and as a result we never end up doing any of them particularly well.

But I think that we actually ended up in a situation where also having it as a weekly challenge rather than a, than a traditional sort of five day challenge actually gave people some time and space to go away, do the reflection, do the homework, as it were, you know, upload results and actually do the work that they needed to do to get to these staging points each week to get a, to get a good picture about where they are across some of the aspects of Profit First.

So I think that part worked really, really well, actually.

Good dedicated topics.

Clearly not enough time to deal with the entirety of Profit First World, but some topics that I think were very, very much designed to help the business owner in their business.

Yeah, I agree, I agree.

And I think we linked the sessions quite nicely together.

I think people found the light bulb moments as they went through and say, oh, that's why they were talking about that last week or the week before that.

That makes sense how it comes together.

How about you, Deb?

What were your thoughts on the whole?

You know, as a summary of the.

Whole challenge, I thought it was really good, really enjoyed it.

It was Nice to see everybody turning up every week.

So they were clearly getting something out of it and all the homework was submitted.

But yeah, like Jason says, the actual doing it a week apart, each session really worked well because everybody's busy, aren't they?

And to try and fit an hour in, in the morning and then try and do the homework or the assessment and then be doing the same the next day, it doesn't really fit into our work, work lifestyle, does it?

Because everybody's got deadlines, everybody's got other things they need to be getting on with.

So having that week in between worked really well.

Yeah, I thought, I thought it was a success and I'm looking forward to the next one.

So it's really interesting that we say that, isn't it?

Because I obviously put everything into our online portal so I can see when people were completing the assignments.

And some people on a Sunday, you know, some people maybe on a Monday, the majority of our attendees completed their homework on Thursday evenings.

Because I would come in, come into the office on a Friday morning and I would have all these emails, would come in saying someone has, you know, submitted an assignment, someone has submitted it.

So then I would look and say, oh, homework's coming in.

Classic Parkinson's law, Jason, isn't it?

For sure.

But I think the most important point is people saw the value in it to get it done on Thursday night, to bring that to a Friday morning into the next week, you know, it wasn't, yeah, fine, I'll, you know, I'll get to that in three weeks time.

People did still, one way or another, make the effort to complete, to complete it.

And I think that's, you know, that is definitely testament to the people who turned up consistently week after week to see that whole pathway through and the succession of events, see how the idea is built from week to week, as you were saying, really underscored the value that was, that was being given, I think.

Yeah, I think so.

I think so.

It's just, it's just funny how you read that human behavior, isn't it, that we've got a deadline because you want to turn up to the next session.

And the, the, the level of attendance was consistently high amongst everybody who signed up for the challenge, which is really good.

Encouraging to see that people saw it all the way through to the end.

But, but it's classic.

Yeah, I need to do the homework before the Friday, call it 9 o' clock, Thursday evening comes.

I haven't done the homework, I'm going to go and do it now.

Because they were able to take their time to do it.

They didn't have to rush to do it that afternoon.

Like Deb said, spreading it across to it becoming once a week as opposed to a daily challenge, I think helped.

Helped our attendees get the most of it as well.

So could I.

Sorry, could I just add on the back of that?

I think one of the other things that it says about the people that attended and the level of dedication they were putting in to the challenge, this wasn't go away and do the homework, you know, keep it yourself on your own little notepad at home somewhere.

This was do the work, upload it.

They actually had to do a second piece which was all about the accountability side of what it is to make progress in a business.

And I think accountability is one of the things that's generally underrated as part of a coaching process, for sure.

And the value that that brings and I think testament to the people that were consistently within the challenge that they actually made the effort to do the work and upload it and share it with you.

I think that speaks volumes, actually, about the level of people and what they were trying to get out of the challenge for themselves.

Yeah, it's about taking action, isn't it, Deb?

Yeah, it is.

And I think it really highlights the need for people to work on their own businesses and to have the guidance to be able to do that, in effect, having the advisory that they want to offer themselves, because who gets time to work on their own business and to the level of detail and have that insight, you know, from other people in the same profession running the same business models.

So, yeah, I think it was really invaluable and it showed, as you say, the level of dedication that the people, the attendees had to their own business and to making sure that they were running a profitable business and taking out the money that they needed to for their own domestic aspirations, really lifestyle aspirations.

And I think the calculator seemed quite popular.

You know, Jason produced some fantastic presentations with some homework off the back of that.

And then we gave them a calculator to play around with.

Numbers, counters and bookkeepers.

We love playing around with numbers, don't we?

So very simple calculators.

But as we went through each session, the.

The way the calculator works changed quite often.

So in week one, we talked about owner's pay.

So owners pay, of course, is what we pay ourselves regularly from the business.

And there are too many accountants and bookkeepers out there that are not paying themselves enough for their business.

And we talk about this quite a lot, but it is a genuine problem and Profit first provides a real life, successfully proven, worldwide solution to this.

And the Profit First Challenge.

And within the Profit first pathway, which is our pre membership group for Profit First Professionals, we're giving accountants and bookkeepers information on how they can start to implement Profit first in their own business to be able to find a way to pay themselves more money, reward themselves better from the business and create consistent, increasing profits and create, and build that longer term sustainable business that they're looking to build so that they can build a team around them or look after their team that are there and be able to serve their clients for a much longer period of time.

The challenge and the pathway though is not, we're not helping you serve your clients, you are not allowed to serve your clients with Profit First Industrial certified, Profit First Professional.

But we can help you find out what needs fixing in your business and we can help you fix that.

That's, that's what the Challenge was all about.

So who wants to talk about the third, the first session?

So, so Jason, I'm going to come to you first because I think Deb should talk about the next, next session we did.

So owners pay, you know, what, what is owner's pay, Jason?

I think it is something that is woefully overlooked by most business owners, let alone accountants and bookkeepers.

And I think one of the objectives within that first week of the challenge was to sort of take people almost back to first principles, starting their own business, whatever the rationale was for that, and actually reflect back on the idea that we classically talk about the whole time and money piece, oh, running my own business, I'll surely have more time, I can work whenever I like and I'll surely earn more money and you know, that'll be easy to do.

And the two things rarely happen.

Once we get beyond that initial momentum of thinking, I need some clients, I need some income.

We're kind of in the weeds already at that point and it becomes quite difficult to break out of those habits and those patterns.

So I think actually taking people back to those first principles and that task of, you know, three things you would do personally and in your business if you had more time and more money, it's a great moment of reflection for people to think about, why did I start this, what did I hope to get out of it and where am I on that pathway now?

But also the idea that we start looking forwards about, well, if I did have a bit more money, what would I be doing?

And all of A sudden you bring that element of incentive into thinking about, okay, can I renew the energy a bit?

Can I up my game a bit?

Can I find a way to do something that would make some of these things happen?

One of the things I love about that exercise is people quite often find out that the things they want to do from a financial perspective are not nearly as costly as they thought they might be.

So all of a sudden, bringing these things to the surface and thinking consciously about them gives that little bit of impetus to think, I don't know, pick anything you like, but let's just pick something that you think is going to cost you 200amonth.

All of a sudden, once you put the number to it, it's not just saying, I want the thing, it's putting the number to it.

That suddenly gives the framework and helps us move towards that.

So for most people, it may be the case they're thinking, oh, 200, okay, maybe that's one client, maybe it's two clients.

But all of a sudden we start to think, think about things in a way that makes things possible rather than it being this, this unknown about, can I afford that?

Okay, well, let's move intentionally towards the thing and work out how we can make it possible.

You know, be that small goals, bigger goals, longer term goals, whatever it might be.

But I love the idea that we really came back to focus on this idea.

We are running a business.

Yes, we're here to serve other people and that's, you know, I'll take that as a given.

But ultimately we have to get a return out of our own business.

And I think for the people that did the exercise, uploaded the homework, and this is true of anybody that does a profit assessment, for me, it does not matter what the answers to that profit assessment are.

When we do the assessment, the whole point is that we get a point of registration, we understand exactly where we are today, and that then allows us to move forwards from that point.

So whether, you know, people uploaded and maybe they were, I don't know, 10% of their revenue, maybe some were at 40%, maybe somewhere higher than that, depending on business models and so on, it doesn't matter what the answer is.

The whole point was to make people consciously aware of where they are today.

And now how do we move forward from that place?

So they do start prioritizing and thinking about how do I turn 10% to 12% to 15%, 40% to 45%, whatever those numbers might be, just getting people into that momentum of thinking more consciously about them getting A reward from their own business, which they're undoubtedly plowing all sorts of energy, time and money into just to do that bit of reflection.

Back to no, I'm doing a good thing here, I deserve a reward for it.

So I think owners pay was the right place to start for the challenge.

Bringing that, you know, that central piece of thought back to the person running the business.

Yeah, I agree.

And it highlights how we build a business.

When we start off, we focus on sales revenue, but actually we should be focusing on, on what we're earning from the business from day one.

And that means paying yourself a percentage of everything you, you bring into the business through sales revenue.

So yeah, of course you have to have clients, you have to be able to provide services to bring money into the business.

Obviously, you know, no brainer, but if you structure yourself so that you are paying yourself a certain percentage of that revenue from day one, you're building the business with structure.

You're building the business with a framework that you can follow and then you can add on other profit first accounts later.

But rewarding yourself and paying yourself in a business has to be the first thing you solve because if you don't solve that, the business isn't sustainable because you can't earn the money that you need to earn from the business first and foremost, as Jason said.

So I love the way you've explained all of that.

I, and I don't think we need to repeat what you've said.

So thank you very much.

It was really concise.

So I'm going to come over to Deb now and talk about session two, which was real revenue.

And for me, real revenue, the art of a profit first professional that's gone through the training, that's certified, that continues ongoing training that brings profit assessments to our post certification groups that we discuss around together.

The art of a profit professional is being able to identify real revenue and being able to track that moving forward with their clients.

And I think it's something that you just, it's impossible to get out from the book.

You just don't get that from the book.

You just get a formula to follow.

And Deb, you, you created your own formula in many ways to work out what your real revenue or your, or your margin of your subcontractors was.

So, so do you want to elaborate a little bit more on that and also some thoughts of how it went with the, with the attendees to our challenge with the real revenue?

Yeah, so yeah, I kind of like when I was pricing and looking at my costs and doing My profit first assessment, I realized that I needed to grow, I needed to take on more clients, but also a team.

And I, I was getting invoices that were very, you know, variable.

Sometimes they had VAT returns, the time that took bat on, sometimes it didn't.

And they were just up and down all the time.

And it really, I was having to do my profit assessment every month, but I couldn't do it properly until I had all my invoices in because I was unsure what my invoices were going to be from my subcontracting team.

So I kind of like realized that I had to really take on board the profit first methodology and make it a percentage.

So we looked over the six months worth of invoices from the team and came up with a figure which was 30%.

So I knew that if I charge my clients 30% for the subcontracting team that I could take off that straight away.

So that then gave me my real revenue.

So the invoices would be paid, I would take off the VAT because that's not my money that goes straight into the back pot.

And then I would take off the subcontracting costs, which was the 30% and I would put that in a pot.

But I paid my subcontractors 27% of that and that left a 3% buffer in there.

So therefore, if we found that the subcontractors had had to do extra work and it hadn't been costed in with the client for whatever reason, then I could have that as a buffer that I was able to pay them.

They weren't out of pocket.

We also kind of set up a system where they didn't increase their fees with me, but I promised to increase my fees as a minimum, on a yearly basis, on an annual basis with the clients.

And because we were paying the subcontractors a percentage that would then that increase would then be reflected.

And also it stopped the possibility of me putting my prices up by say 5% and then the subcontractors three months later putting their prices up by 7% or 10% and me being out of pocket again.

So it all aligned perfectly well.

It worked really, really well.

We looked at transaction levels to make sure that if the clients increased their transactions and therefore that that was extra work for the subcontractors, I kept on top of that with price increases for the clients.

So yeah, so it worked really, really well.

It allowed me then to know what I was running my business on, which was my real revenue costs.

Because the team are really?

Cost of sales, are they?

Yeah, I love that.

And it's something we talk about quite a lot, isn't it, about the delivery of the work, you know, going into the real revenue calculation.

And of course, when you, when you change the sales revenue less, your delivery cost becomes your real revenue.

So when you look at that, then your owner's pay becomes a percentage of your real revenue.

Suddenly there's a different calculation being made.

It's not actually perhaps your owners pay off your sales revenue.

So there's a very clever equation going on there that people won't be aware of that we use within our membership at Profit First Professionals.

And we shared some of these tips as we are today, because this is Profit first beyond the book, you know, so we're happy to share some, some of these tips and we shared some of this within our challenge in the Profit first pathway.

And I think that, like I say that that's where the expertise of Profit first can come into play.

And people won't understand that necessarily just by reading the book.

But for me, real revenue is really key.

And if you get that right and then you reflect on what your owner's pay is as a percentage of the real revenue, then you've really got a strong, solid foundation to build your business.

Would you agree with that, Jason?

Absolutely.

And I think that it is, I really do think it is one of my favorite beyond the Book techniques.

You know, we take the members through it as they go through certification.

This flip about how we think about the cost of delivery for their practices, let alone clients, beyond that for the certified members.

And I think it is a real eye opener for people.

It suddenly shines the light on the size of team, the structure of the team.

Some of the things that Deb was saying, you know, take that to another level as well as a piece of structure.

But I think it's absolutely vital.

We have to know what we are really left with to run the rest of the business, be that owners pay tax, profit, operating expenses and so on to give that piece of focus.

But what it also does is it informs the future that new client prospect.

We can work out very quickly whether they're going to add to what's going on or whether actually going to start detracting from it.

So in terms of forming a more ideal client base as time moves forward, we have a much more informed idea about how we can do that in a profitable way.

Does the client fit?

Does the client not fit?

And I think that for me is really about this.

I go back to that Profit assessment is the starting point.

Everything we do after that is informed from that place.

So our ability to make those changes on an ongoing basis to improve results over time, it's never going to be an overnight fix.

But that idea that we can change over time, we can progress towards something that we can see how it will actually benefit us more in the future becomes a very straightforward process.

But I think it helps us interrogate our own businesses to a much greater level as well.

Do we have the right team of people?

Do we really need a full time staff member doing tax work for us?

Could that be subcontracted perhaps in the future?

So I know that for some of our certified members as we've gone through it, you know, people have changed structure of their team as people have left.

People have not been replaced, different techniques have been applied in order to boost that real revenue line and the return that people are actually getting in terms of money available to run the rest of their business.

So yeah, absolutely, 100%.

One of my favorite pieces of technique that we take members through as they go through certification because I think it is definitely a light bulb moment for most of them.

I agree, I agree.

And you mentioned, you referenced the profit assessment a couple of times there and I think the power of the profit assessment is going to be another conversation for us to have on a future episode because there's so much to talk about on that topic and you know, it just briefly.

The profit assessment is how we start work with our clients or with our members and it identifies how the cash has been used in the business up to this point.

The clever part is what do we do next?

And Profit first professionals always look to the future and we're always forecasting ahead and looking forward and helping our clients move forward in a structured sort of step by step process to create higher, consistently increasing profits, reward themselves better from the business by increasing their owners pay and creating longer term sustainable business.

But that's a, that's a topic for another episode I think.

And I want to go back to the challenge and in at the end of the second session by the way, I received a message straight after the call and Lynn Graham, who was on the challenge joined Profit First Professionals at that point.

So she'd seen enough.

I'd had a conversation with her a few months earlier, so.

So Lynn was already interested in becoming a, a Profit First Professional but at that time wasn't quite ready.

This happens so many times with conversations I have with accountants and bookkeepers.

I really want to join but I don't feel Like I'm quite ready or I'm doing another program.

When that program ends, maybe it's the right time for me to join.

So this happens quite a lot, which is why we've got the Profit first pathway.

So people then join the Profit first pathway.

It's unapologetically a pre membership group for Profit First Professionals.

We make no bones about it that the brand colors are the same, just slightly the other way around.

We talk about profit first in there.

We want to encourage people to take action in their own business so they can come and join us.

And Lynn, after session two, it seemed enough from us and wanted to join.

Since then, she's smashing profit first in her own business already.

She's already done her profit assessment, she's already done all the steps to implement in her own business.

Obviously that's an ongoing journey that myself and Jason will be having with her and supporting her through that process.

And she's ready to start working on a beta client.

So as a Profit first professional now, she can now take that to the next level and start working with clients, which again, is the fun bit, isn't it?

So I wanted to share that because that's an element of success for us, but also it's a success for Lynne to be able to take that step.

And the feedback she's given us so far is second to none.

She's getting so much from having joined us.

So that was after session two and then session three, we moved into sales revenue, which would seem, on the, you know, from the outside, a strange topic for us to talk about when we're so focused on owners pay and profit, you know, and we quite often say, look, it's not all about sales, but of course we need to have an element of sales revenue coming into the business.

What we tried to look at using the calculators was how much revenue do you need to bring in to give you the right amount of real revenue so that you can pay yourself the amount of money you need to pay yourself?

And then what does that look like?

If you want to pay yourself the amount of money that will achieve the things we talked about in session one, which I think was three things you would do in your business if money was no object and you had all the time possible and three things you would do in personal life with the same scenario.

And so it enabled the attendees to play around with numbers.

The flip side to that is, okay, so if I want to earn this and that makes my real revenue this number, then my sales revenue needs to be this.

Because I know what my margins are going to be, so I know what my sales revenue is going to be.

What does that look like through number of clients if I was to charge this amount per month?

And so we started to look at the average sales revenue per client, didn't we?

So, Jason, you produced a presentation on this, so do you want to elaborate a little bit more on the calculations we help them with?

Yeah, I think it also comes back to one of my favorite things about profit, first as a technique, which is reverse engineering.

You know, this idea of it's a one thing to understand things and we can build things in reverse, but we've also got to understand where we're going.

So just the idea that having done the piece of work in the prior week, to look at those team costs for those that have team or certainly for those thinking about adding team members in, how does that change the equation?

And I think the second thing that I'd say about it is not all revenue is built equally.

There is good quality revenue and there's poor quality revenue.

And I think that, again, it's one of the things that our members go through within the certification process is the evaluation of their existing client base.

I know you've talked about this previously in your own practice, Tim.

You know, like, the business starts, we get some clients, and then they potentially, you know, refer to more poor clients, as it turns out.

So one of the things that we started to look at was an idea of, you know, what does the bottom 20% of your client base currently look like?

You know, what's the revenue coming in?

What are the characteristics of those people?

Are they hard to deal with?

Do you have to spend your life chasing them for information?

So I think it's one of those moments in time that as the focus then shifted into week four, and I won't give the game away about that yet, but emphasis shifts to week four.

We're starting to think about what would it take to replace that bottom 20%, and would my life be easier as a result of that change, and would it help shift the profitability of my business and change that real revenue number?

So clearly we need the money at the top to have something to pay the subcontractors with, to leave whatever's left after that.

But I think it starts taking that sales revenue discussion to a much deeper level.

You know, we are now consciously thinking about, is this the right client to take on?

Is it going to add to what happens in my practice, or is it going to detract from it?

And I think that that again, becomes one of the things we don't really pay enough attention to.

We always feel like the answer is yes when the opportunity is presented.

And actually learning to be a bit more critical and understanding about the cause and effect of taking on a new client in that way helps us to make better decisions for the business overall.

So, yes, you know, without sales, we have nothing.

And that's absolutely where it has to start.

But I think this idea that not all sales will be, you know, have an equal worth, as it were, to a business is an important one to recognize.

And again, it becomes an evolution.

We're never going to say to people, just drop the bottom 20%, it's fine, we'll cover that off.

These things are, you know, swap an exchange swap an exchange swap, an exchange for better quality.

As we move forward and see those opportunities ahead of us.

I've heard lots of accountants and bookkeepers have said to me that they've been on different, various programs with various people and have been told to just cut their bottom 20% of clients just like that.

I just think that's such bad advice because you need to do this strategically.

Yes, you might want to remove some of your bad clients, but you need to do it as a step by step process.

Everything about profit first is taking one small step at a time.

Because those small steps build up to a massive, you know, you, you achieve a massive peak at the end, you know, of those small steps.

Small steps lead you to a lifetime of success.

You cannot change the world in one fell swoop.

So going too fast is quite often the biggest mistake people make when trying to transform their accountancy bookkeeping business.

So we're on the map.

We're on the profit first mantra, which is all about, you know, habits, creating new habits by taking one small step at a time.

And we would never recommend people to just clear out clients in one fell swoop because where's your money going to come from next if you haven't got the business to bring in or you're taking a gamble that you're going to find more, more businesses because you're now an advisor in your mind, that doesn't necessarily do the trick.

And funnily enough, that leads us nicely into the next session, which was what is advisory and do our clients actually care?

So, Deb, we had quite a lengthy conversation about management accounts.

Do they really help the clients?

And then we talked about how can we help our clients more.

So would you like to share some of your thoughts on that, please, Deb.

Sorry, I thought you said Jason put my ears back on.

Yeah.

Remind me of the question, Tim.

It was the advisory.

No, that's okay.

That's okay.

No, so just really about, you know, providing management accounts is.

Is what we're told to do.

And as accountants, we think that's the thing we should be doing, but it doesn't necessarily serve the clients.

So it was.

It was about how we can serve the clients in a better way.

Yeah, we need to talk to them in their language, don't we, with things that they understand and things that they want to know.

Jason's mentioned before, not necessarily in this episode, but I've heard him say it lots of times.

They're not interested in whether they've made a profit, particularly.

They want to know what they can spend their money on and if they can take money out of the business.

So it's.

They.

They need to know things like can they afford a new team member, you know, can they spend on marketing ads, what.

Their budget for what, what.

What can they put aside for tax?

And we get too hung up on management reports as bookkeepers and accountants, because we like the reports.

We like that this software amalgamates all these different figures and these different numbers, and we can put them into pretty graphs.

And doesn't it look professional?

And doesn't it look that we look clever, that we've done this for you?

And then we can charge you upwards of 2, 3, 400 pounds a month for this dazzling report?

And the clients that I found are not interested.

You know, and it's not.

It's not a case of not presenting it properly.

It's a case of listening to what they actually want to know, what is going on in their business, what are the decisions that they need to make and how can we give them that information that's going to enable them to make that decision on their own without having to phone us up, can I. I spend this.

Or wait until the report comes out with a little video explaining everything and hoping that they actually understand what it is that you're talking about?

They glaze over.

They.

They feel stupid for not understanding the terminology, and they feel as if they should, as business owners, if they're having a successful business, they should understand management reporting.

But that's.

That's.

That's our problem.

That's.

That's our.

As accountants and bookkeepers, because we're not listening to the, to the business owners.

We've said before, account management accounts are built for accountants, by accountants, for accountants.

It was for the tax collectors that all the bookkeeping profit and loss, balance sheet.

It was all.

All done for the tax collectors, business owners, a lot.

You know, when bookkeeping and double entry was, they couldn't read and write.

You know, they just wanted to know they probably count, but they couldn't read and write documents and read profit and loss.

So we need to talk to them in the language that Mike Michalowicz has invented.

Being a business owner, he actually invented the system or devised the system so that he could understand his own numbers, and that was on a segregation, on a percent percentage basis.

Put this aside for this.

You know, every dollar had a job, whereas we.

We need to get.

We back in touch with that.

And you just see the stress levels disappear from the client's shoulders.

You know, they come to you with their shoulders up like that.

You start talking to them in a level that they can understand in a.

In a language you don't have to translate, and they just.

They relax because they can just look at their bank balance.

And that's all they want to do.

They want to look at their bank balance and decide whether they can make those buying and spending decisions and they've got the money in their relevant pot, then yes, they can.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think you've captured all of that wonderfully well.

And yeah, Mike created the system because he failed twice with two businesses, you know, and he was sat at home with his head in his hands, and his daughter went and got his piggyback, her piggy bank that she was saving up for a pony, I believe, and.

And offered him the money.

And I think the.

The reality of that hit him square in the face.

He.

He felt a failure, and he went through a few months of depressive behavior, by his own admission, drinking.

Because I suppose we.

We have to go through that.

We have to go through that period of feeling, maybe feeling sorry for ourselves, but also feeling such a failure and that you've let your family down, let everybody else down.

And then the light bulbs started to light up in his mind, didn't they?

And he created Profit first and he wrote the book, you know, and he shared something on an earlier podcast, actually, about why he then set up Profit First Professionals, which was really interesting.

His editor of the.

Of the book actually came back to him and said, this is fantastic.

How can I get a bookkeeper that can help me with this?

And Mike was like, what do you mean?

He said, well, I. I don't think I can do this on my own.

I think I'm going to need to be held accountable.

So how can I find Someone.

And so Mike said he spoke to a bookkeeper he knew, asked them if they wanted to be the first piece in person to go through certification.

And he built the program with Rob.

Of course, you know, Ron was with him as well.

Of course, you know, their business partners when it comes to profit for professionals.

But I. I just thought that was really interesting how that came about.

And then, of course, it was all about people becoming certified accountants, bookkeepers, coaches becoming certified so that they can support businesses in the right way and share, as you've referred to it before there, Mike's intellectual property with everybody, but in the correct way.

Because people can read a book and, you know, go the wrong way with things, not follow through, and it can fall over quite quickly if you're not supported by someone who is continually trained, has to recertify, you know, has to constantly retrain and keep learning all the new tips and new tricks.

So that.

That was.

Sorry, I went.

I went off on a bit of a tangent, but because he said that, it just felt right to share it because it was fairly fresh in my mind having, you know, spoke to Mike fairly recently.

So, Jason, we got to week five of the challenge, and that was more a summary kind of overview, bringing everything together, asking attendees what they thought and if there'd been any successes.

And I think there was someone who shared some success.

Can you.

Can you remember what that was?

Yeah, I think, you know, success is.

Is an interesting term, isn't it?

We all have our levels of what we consider success to be, but certainly for one of the people going through one of the exercises, they'd uncovered 303, 300amonth, I think, in savings, something like that.

You know, that's a good first round here at trying to change the shape of your business and how money flows through a business.

And I think, to be fair, we see it all the time with people going through certification subscriptions that are unused, subscriptions that are not recharged to clients.

There is an immediate opportunity for a financial win in there, either to address the lack of charge to clients that should be charged for something, or recognizing that clients have been on legacy rates for, you know, QuickBooks, Xero, whatever those platforms might be that they typically recharge for.

We definitely help one member understand how they could build their proposal system into being part of a chargeable arrangement with a client.

So I think it is.

There are these things which crop up and wins are different for everyone, and the levels will be different for everyone, you know, but I think it's recognizing the opportunities to win financially, to change the shape of that profit assessment, to change what that real revenue line looks like, to leverage something from that.

You know, to me that's, you know, that's 300 that could be used to support owners pay, it could be used to fuel marketing.

You know, there are, there are plenty of better things that that 300 could be doing in that business at a moment in time.

The other thing I think I'd just pick up on there is understanding what it really means to do profit first in your business does take on another level when you work with a PfP because this is about how you leverage the system, not just standstill.

And I think certainly I've had clients over the years who have said, yeah, I've sort of, you know, I've self implemented, I've got my bank account set up and so on.

But they'll never done a quarterly profit distribution, they will never reassess their percentages, you know, as two very common things.

And like, fine, they're off busy running their businesses.

And there's a degree of why should they?

But I think this is, it is that it's not quite beyond the book because it's clearly written in the book how people should progress with the system that very few people do.

And that I think is one of the real underplayed values of profit first and working with a profit first professional.

It is about leveraging the system.

It is moving from whatever that original profit assessment's view of the business is to a better place through a progressive set of quarters, typically for us.

But that view about where are we going?

And I think it's one of the things I would come back on the management accounts discussion for me, I think too often it feels like it is a full stop in the conversation with a client is the impression I get the way that they're used and the way that people talk about them.

It should be the start of a conversation about what does this mean we can do?

And I think that to me is there's only half an answer.

Producing the reports and listening to Deb, then I'm thinking I actually feel quite sad that people are basically saying to a business owner, you need management accounts, it's the next thing you need.

When actually all they're really doing is quite frankly pressing a few buttons, using another platform to turn it into some pretty graphs and going, look, there you go.

That's worth whatever I think it's worth a month.

It's not helping anyone actually move forward in their business.

And I, I actually think That's.

That's quite a sad state of affairs, actually.

You know, clients are paying money out that could be used for other things, for things that are not giving any value.

You know, that historical view.

Yes, it's important.

Yes.

I look back over the breadcrumbs of history through someone's zero records and how they've traded, but I'm looking for the patterns in those numbers.

I don't really care what the numbers are.

I'm looking for the patterns that are going to help me work out how they're actually going to move forwards and how we address some of those historical issues, perhaps going forwards.

So, yeah, I thought it was an interesting roundup with some of the wins that people had had going through the challenge.

Different for different people, but really, I think it becomes one of those things, you know, you get out what you put in.

People put a lot of effort in to doing the homework exercises, getting to some points of realisation and yes, some getting financial wins along the way as well.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

And there were definitely a lot of successes from the challenge, not just the 300 pound a month one.

There was, you know, we asked for marks out of 10 and we got unanimous 10 out of 10.

And that wasn't to feed our ego, that was genuinely asking for feedback because we wanted to know if we needed to add stuff in that we'd missed, talk about different things.

We asked in the last call if we'd covered everything.

We asked if there was anything we didn't cover and everybody gave us back really positive feedback on everything, which.

Which was tremendous.

But I'm sure when, you know, we've reflected on the challenge and we've gone through and, you know, we've tweaked a few things because the three of us are perfectionists and we want it for you better again.

And there will be an opportunity to join another Profit first challenge through the Profit first pathway coming up very soon.

So the way to be able to join these Profit first challenges is to be within the Profit first pathway.

So there's a.

There's a group in Facebook, it's called the Profit first pathway.

If you just type the Profit first pathway into Facebook, you'll see a nice green and blue graphic with myself, Jason and Deb, all there, a couple.

I think you're both holding a Profit first book.

I think I'm.

You got my goofy smile on show as usual.

So you won't be able to miss us.

Um, hit join.

Um, you'll have to answer three very simple questions and they're really simple questions.

So answer the questions, agree to the rules.

Obviously that's important because we need to make sure everybody's protected within the group.

It is a community at the end of the day.

And come and join us and then see what you can do moving forward.

You know, if you then are ready to join the Profit First Challenge, come and join our challenge.

After that, maybe you'll be in a position to think about joining Profit First Professionals.

If you haven't heard of Profit First, I urge you to read the book first and foremost.

But there's also another option, another action that you could take right now that will actually help you understand where your business is at right now from a Profit first perspective.

And so that's is a bit of a mouthful to read this site, so bear with me.

Profit hyphen first assessment.scoreapp.com so, yes, we are, we are users of Score app via Daniel Priestley.

You know, we're friends with Daniel.

They really are beneficial.

They help us as a business.

And this assessment can sincerely help you get an idea of where you're at with profit first in your business.

So that's profit hyphen first assessment.scoreapp.com so I urge you to have a look at that as well.

That's it, you know, the challenge is over for now.

There'll be a new one coming out very soon.

I'm really enjoying the Profit first pathway and the clarity that, that it's given everybody who's within that community now.

Any last words?

Any last words, Deb, before we close off the podcast?

You're on mute, dad.

It's been a long podcast, to be fair.

I'm really looking forward to profitcon.

That's, that's my, my next thing.

Yeah, can't wait for that.

And then the next challenge.

We've got to get our heads together and start planning that one.

So, yeah, exciting times.

Absolutely.

Thanks, Deb.

Thanks for joining us.

Jason, any last words?

Yeah.

Profit first makes us better business owners and that includes us as Profit First Professionals as well.

I'm delighted that the challenge went well.

I'm delighted that people participated fully in the experience with us.

And I, you know, I absolutely trust that those people took something away that will be of benefit to them in their business going forwards.

That was the intention for us to help people see things through a slightly different lens, perhaps get them to refocus on some things they may have forgotten about and prioritize, some things that maybe hadn't been prioritized.

So, yeah, I think.

Fantastic.

Beat around.

Yeah.

I would say for those that didn't have the chance to participate this time, watch out for the posts in the group in due course.

Get yourself on the waitlist when that arrives for it.

Yeah.

Keep focusing on your return in your own business.

Thank you.

Well, thank you both for joining me.

And as Deb mentioned, ProfitCon is coming up very soon on 22nd September in London.

You can find out more on our website, profit first uk.co.uk just hit the profitcon uk25 tab and you can see all our keynote speakers.

You can find out more about the event and you can secure your tickets by clicking on the link.

We'd love to see you there.

There's not many tickets left, so I would advise you to jump on that quite quickly.

Come and join us for a day of transformative value from some really amazing keynote speakers.

We've got Mike Mikadovich, Ron Baker, CARL Reader, Richard McCann, myself and Duncan, Jason and Deb are going to be there.

Lots of the Profit first team and lots of more Profit First Professionals.

So come and join us.

We'd love to see you there.

But for now, thanks very much for joining us on our podcast, Profit first beyond the Book.

Thank you for joining us on our podcast today.

Profit first beyond the Book was brought to you by the Profit First Professionals UK and Ireland team.

If you'd like to find out more about Profit first or becoming a Profit First Professional, head to our website, profit first uk.co.uk.