Josh Fox, Founder/CEO of Bottom Line Concepts, talks about going back in time to find hidden money for businesses, digging into the data over the cost of pencils, the shocking error rate of most business invoices, which companies have the greatest opportunities for savings, the treasure trove of unclaimed property, being elected president...just not of the USA, and his mantra of “Thank God It’s Monday”.
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Hello Action Catalyst listeners. Welcome
Adam Outland:back. We have with us Josh Fox today CEO and co founder of
Adam Outland:Bottom Line Concepts, a consulting firm that teams up
Adam Outland:with organizations to assess the top line items that are
Adam Outland:adversely affecting the business's profits. Please help
Adam Outland:me in welcoming Josh Fox. Thanks for making the time. Josh, I
Adam Outland:appreciate you being on here with us. And I'd love to start a
Adam Outland:little bit early in your story. And then we can dive in to a big
Adam Outland:part of what you do today. But I'd love to hear how you chose
Adam Outland:the path of call it money in general, what did you get
Adam Outland:focused on this aspect of business in your life.
Josh Fox:It goes really, really, really far back, Adam,
Josh Fox:in fact, my great grandfather worked on Wall Street. And so it
Josh Fox:was my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, what I
Josh Fox:ever knew my entire life was, you know, my family working on
Josh Fox:Wall Street. And in 1977, my father moved to Long Island, New
Josh Fox:York, and he chose the shortest commute into the city, so that
Josh Fox:he could be at work every day. And but what I do remember also
Josh Fox:is that my father was, most importantly, as a family, man.
Josh Fox:And so when that when the bell rang at four o'clock, he got
Josh Fox:right on that train, and he made sure that he was home for dinner
Josh Fox:with his family. And that was, I think, part of what shaped me as
Josh Fox:a man today, knowing that my father put his family first. And
Josh Fox:you know, work was important to him, but he wanted to always be
Josh Fox:around for dinner and for soccer and swim practice. And, you
Josh Fox:know, that was definitely something that made me a person
Josh Fox:that was in full of integrity.
Adam Outland:So unlike so many people, I mean, you you
Adam Outland:literally have this literally in your blood generationally. But
Adam Outland:but you ended up doing econ. And then what was your first gig
Adam Outland:coming out of out of university?
Josh Fox:I've only really had two jobs in my life. Right after
Josh Fox:college, I became a independent financial advisor, where I was
Josh Fox:advising either individuals or corporations on things like, you
Josh Fox:know, health insurance plans, pension programs. So, you know,
Josh Fox:very early on, I was advising individual families and small
Josh Fox:corporations on how to set up benefit programs and how to do
Josh Fox:investments.
Adam Outland:But roughly what year was this that you were
Adam Outland:doing the financial advisor?
Josh Fox:1999, basically.
Adam Outland:So you've been doing that almost a full 10
Adam Outland:years when the financial crisis happened?
Josh Fox:Yeah, that was the "aha" moment, Adam, you know, if
Josh Fox:the listeners out there can really vividly remember the
Josh Fox:mortgage meltdown of 2008. That's when I sat back, I was
Josh Fox:working on Wall Street, I was following in my family's
Josh Fox:footsteps. And all we saw in this country during the Oh,
Josh Fox:eight meltdown was lots of companies just firing their
Josh Fox:employees, you know, everybody needed to save money. Everybody
Josh Fox:wanted to save their business. And it seemed like the quickest,
Josh Fox:fastest way for businesses to just save money tomorrow was to
Josh Fox:cut headcount. And that was not something that felt good to me,
Josh Fox:that wasn't something that was a long term strategy. Like, let's
Josh Fox:not cut headcount. And so I said to myself, was there a way to
Josh Fox:start a business where we could go to some of the largest
Josh Fox:corporations on Earth, and help them figure out ways to do one
Josh Fox:of two things, to go back in time and look for refund past
Josh Fox:opportunities where we could get the money back from the past?
Josh Fox:Sometimes we could go back 20 3040 years, and which we've
Josh Fox:done, so half of the model was going back and looking for
Josh Fox:refunds, and the other half of the model was figuring out
Josh Fox:strategies to help them save money on their expenses, without
Josh Fox:sacrificing people without cutting headcount.
Adam Outland:Do you feel that your experience prior had given
Adam Outland:you insights before 2008? Were you were seeing a lot of just
Adam Outland:overweight expenses in certain areas? What were you because I
Adam Outland:feel like that's generally the role of an auditor to see that
Adam Outland:side of the business. So what gave you that insight?
Josh Fox:Well, simultaneously, Adam, I was actually voted to be
Josh Fox:president of my condominium in New York City. Okay. And so I
Josh Fox:was responsible for about 220 families, and as the President
Josh Fox:of the building my job, unpaid job, volunteer job, right. Like
Josh Fox:my volunteer job as the president of the building was to
Josh Fox:help control the cost of the building. And so I was
Josh Fox:renegotiating contracts with like, with the electricity and
Josh Fox:the gas and the water. I was helping lower union fees. I was
Josh Fox:looking for cheaper supplies for the buildings. I was looking for
Josh Fox:bank accounts where we could get higher interest on our money.
Josh Fox:Like I really use my financial skills that I had learned to
Josh Fox:become this great president of one of the largest and newest
Josh Fox:condominiums at the time in New York City. I got written up in
Josh Fox:the Wall Street Journal I got written up in the New York
Josh Fox:Times, I was protecting their investment and I was protecting
Josh Fox:the building.
Adam Outland:Yeah, so it was your as your volunteer job that
Adam Outland:actually gave you the first insight. So because we have a,
Adam Outland:we have 18 different companies in our family of companies for
Adam Outland:the Southwestern Family of Companies. And we have some
Adam Outland:shared corporate resources for things like marketing. And so
Adam Outland:I'm just kind of playing this out as an example from like,
Adam Outland:what I see day to day, so I can better understand it. But let's
Adam Outland:say you hire brilliant marketing people, because they've got an
Adam Outland:eye for marketing and how to build something, but someone in
Adam Outland:marketing may not be trained around how to handle and vet
Adam Outland:proposals or contracts with vendors, right? Is that kind of
Adam Outland:what we're talking about, like where it might be a department
Adam Outland:that's really skilled at their craft, but part of every
Adam Outland:business units responsibility are going with outside vendors.
Adam Outland:And so you're just assessing, are we doing what's right with
Adam Outland:outside vendors, contracts? And that's one area that's being
Adam Outland:squeezed by companies in some cases?
Josh Fox:I mean, there's, there's a fancier term today
Josh Fox:called procurements, you know, it used to be kind of
Josh Fox:negotiations, or know that there's, there's companies that
Josh Fox:are buying, you know, millions and 10s of millions of stuff
Josh Fox:every day for their business. I mean, it could be pens and
Josh Fox:pencils, it could be light bulbs, it could be anything that
Josh Fox:they're buying to continue to run your business. And as you
Josh Fox:grow as you acquire companies, as you, as you said, you have
Josh Fox:all these businesses, like there's lots of inefficiencies,
Josh Fox:you know, you might be using staples in one company, and
Josh Fox:Office Depot in a different company, and you need to
Josh Fox:coordinate, you know, buying the supplies, maybe from one vendor
Josh Fox:and getting price breaks and getting better prices, because
Josh Fox:you're able to consolidate that kind of stuff.
Adam Outland:When companies grow quickly, they don't always
Adam Outland:sit down and reflect on their buying power and how that
Adam Outland:adjusts with scale.
Josh Fox:But the other thing is the data, Adam, you know what I
Josh Fox:mean? Like, if you're buying a pencil for $1, how do you know
Josh Fox:if that pencil should be 80 cents, 70 cents, or 60 cents, if
Josh Fox:you have our data from hundreds and 1000s of other companies on
Josh Fox:what other companies were paying for that pencil, you have power,
Josh Fox:you have knowledge to be able to go back to a vendor and say, Hi,
Josh Fox:I know other clients that are using you that are paying 1020
Josh Fox:30 40% less, I would like the same deal or close to the same
Josh Fox:deal that you're giving my other clients. And that was the, you
Josh Fox:know, the beginning of things like GPOs group purchasing
Josh Fox:organizations where they would band together hundreds or 1000s
Josh Fox:of companies, and they would go to vendors and they would say,
Josh Fox:Listen, I have not one company, I have 1000 companies and I want
Josh Fox:to buy these products for all my clients at a discount. And
Josh Fox:that's where the GPOs have really been powerful.
Adam Outland:One of the things I think you've shared is that
Adam Outland:you say in many cases, you've seen over 50% of monthly
Adam Outland:invoices containing errors or miscalculations that waste
Adam Outland:money. But why is that error rate so high?
Josh Fox:I mean, think about it, every time I go to dinner,
Josh Fox:like a lot of people just like sign the cheque and they just
Josh Fox:move off. Like it's very, very frequently when I look at the
Josh Fox:bill at dinner or lunch, you're charged for an extra water or
Josh Fox:you're charged for an extra coffee, you know, this eye dish
Josh Fox:shouldn't have been included in the meal. Like it's just a
Josh Fox:question of looking and reviewing and taking the extra
Josh Fox:time to look at this stuff.
Adam Outland:You're the guy at the dinner date that reviews the
Adam Outland:receipt.
Josh Fox:I think it's worth taking a few minutes to make
Josh Fox:sure it's correct.
Adam Outland:My wife would applaud you. I should do that
Adam Outland:more. So I guess what particular areas of business? Are you most
Adam Outland:likely to have hidden savings? Is it what you were mentioning
Adam Outland:earlier where it's kind of the hard resources that a company
Adam Outland:might use as they scale? like light bulbs, staples, like kind
Adam Outland:of the office supplies? Or are there other hidden areas?
Josh Fox:I think that companies that tend to have the most
Josh Fox:opportunity for efficiencies and savings are the ones that have
Josh Fox:the most locations, you know, once you're located in 20
Josh Fox:states, 30 states 40 states, and you're all over the place like
Josh Fox:how do you manage a business that has so many stores, and so
Josh Fox:many locations? You know, one of the things that we've been doing
Josh Fox:since the very beginning, one of the coolest programs that we
Josh Fox:found out was something called unclaimed property. Like there
Josh Fox:are so many lost checks out there in this country, where a
Josh Fox:vendor will send a check to an office a store or location and
Josh Fox:the business move the business change like they're not located
Josh Fox:there anymore. And that money never ends up in the rightful
Josh Fox:owner. So there's a shipment process in our country where the
Josh Fox:vendor who wrote the check cannot keep the other vendors
Josh Fox:money, they must sheet the money over to the state where they
Josh Fox:initiated that check. And so like California is like number
Josh Fox:two, New York is number one. I mean these states are holding
Josh Fox:billions and billions and billions of dollars of launched.
Josh Fox:Check See, that belongs to either individuals or belong to
Josh Fox:corporations. And corporations don't necessarily even realize
Josh Fox:that the money is available to them. And that's one of the most
Josh Fox:unique programs that we've been doing here for 10 plus years, is
Josh Fox:helping corporations identify unclaimed checks, and helping
Josh Fox:them recover that money.
Adam Outland:So there's just kind of a natural ROI for the
Adam Outland:work that you do, because you're saving companies a lot of a lot
Adam Outland:of money when they invest in that service.
Josh Fox:Yeah, and we built a different model, Adam, you know,
Josh Fox:in the fact that we were willing to do all of the work, we were
Josh Fox:willing to do all of the research, we were willing to do
Josh Fox:everything to take the project to completion. And our clients
Josh Fox:never had to pay us anything until it was successful. So we
Josh Fox:give them a very easy way to say yes to this, like, yeah, go get
Josh Fox:me my money from the state of New York, or go get me my money
Josh Fox:from the state of New Jersey. And if you can get me the money,
Josh Fox:I'm happy to share a portion with you. So you really allow
Josh Fox:the client to get the benefit without having to pay a fee
Josh Fox:until it's done.
Adam Outland:Internally, in your company, you have a sort of
Adam Outland:a mantra of "thank God, it's Monday", which you believe is
Adam Outland:really important philosophy for people talk about that. What
Adam Outland:does that mean?
Josh Fox:When you love what you do you love going to work? You
Josh Fox:know, for me, I'm sad on Fridays, because the workweek is
Josh Fox:over happy on Sunday night, because I know the next work
Josh Fox:week is available. And we've helped so many businesses, Adam,
Josh Fox:and when we think about the work that we've done, like all of the
Josh Fox:wonderful benefits of what's happened to the money that we've
Josh Fox:saved and recovered for these companies. One of the most
Josh Fox:important things I think, that we see at corporations is what
Josh Fox:kind of benefits packages are being offered to its employees,
Josh Fox:retaining employees, hiring key employees, having great talent
Josh Fox:is the key to a successful organization. So when people are
Josh Fox:interviewing at companies, they're saying, what kind of
Josh Fox:health insurance plan do you offer? Do you offer time off for
Josh Fox:paternity and maternity leave? Do you offer retirement plans?
Josh Fox:Do you match retirement plans? Do you still have pension
Josh Fox:programs like that's very, very, very important to employees when
Josh Fox:they're choosing a place to work. And so what we found is
Josh Fox:that as we started to save and recover money for these
Josh Fox:businesses, they were able to enhance and improve the benefits
Josh Fox:packages that they offered to their employees to make it a
Josh Fox:more attractive place to work.
Adam Outland:I love that, thank God, it's Monday, that's a good
Adam Outland:that's good mantra no matter what business someone's in,
Adam Outland:right, you need to have that attitude around your line of
Adam Outland:work. And speaking of work, this is so kind of shifting gears for
Adam Outland:a second. Josh, we got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to our
Adam Outland:podcast, as well there that are actually at the start of their
Adam Outland:career in business. And in taking a chance on building
Adam Outland:something, you know, 10 years in as a financial advisor. I mean,
Adam Outland:it's 2008, we talked about the recession and your change of
Adam Outland:heart focus with the line of work you did, but there's
Adam Outland:something that it's in my head that I want you to answer is
Adam Outland:this. I mean, I'm an executive coach, I work with a lot of
Adam Outland:people in wealth management, 10 years into a financial advisor
Adam Outland:career, it's hard to leave. I mean, you're making good money.
Adam Outland:You're the president of your condo, like things are going
Adam Outland:great. I get there's there's a big impact in the marketplace.
Adam Outland:But like why take a risk to do this?
Josh Fox:You know, Adam, 67% of American businesses are small
Josh Fox:businesses. It's the heart of America. It's capitalism. It's
Josh Fox:what makes America great that you can start something from
Josh Fox:nothing, and build it into something awesome. And I wanted
Josh Fox:to do that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to start
Josh Fox:something from scratch. I remember when I was a kid, like
Josh Fox:sitting with my grandmother, I was always interested in
Josh Fox:building things. I love games and building things. And that's
Josh Fox:really who I wanted to be. I wanted to provide an opportunity
Josh Fox:to start a company and to grow a business. And you know, today,
Josh Fox:we employ over 300 people that love to come to work that truly
Josh Fox:believe in TGIM. We have people that work at the company where
Josh Fox:there are husbands and wives that work here. There are you
Josh Fox:know, mothers and fathers that work here, like there's like
Josh Fox:family members that work for the company. And it's just such a
Josh Fox:great atmosphere here. I am very, very, very, very
Josh Fox:passionate about the environment and the oceans and 40 of us from
Josh Fox:the company on a Saturday here in Florida. We gave up our
Josh Fox:Saturday, we went down to the beach, we went there with
Josh Fox:plastic bags, and we collected 124 pounds of plastic off of the
Josh Fox:ocean. Like as the leader of the company, like that's the stuff
Josh Fox:that inspires me. That's the stuff that makes me warm my
Josh Fox:heart that we have a group of people here that started from a
Josh Fox:small company, and then we had people who really care to go
Josh Fox:clean up the oceans. I mean, that's pretty special.
Adam Outland:I can appreciate that. That's awesome. You know,
Adam Outland:there's no real Disney story if ever Anything goes perfect Josh,
Adam Outland:right? Like there's and there's probably very few stories where
Adam Outland:you start a business and everything works perfectly from
Adam Outland:the beginning. And there's never a problem. And so let our
Adam Outland:listeners in a little bit on this, because I feel like
Adam Outland:everybody runs into a wall. I know a lot of our listeners run
Adam Outland:into a wall when they're building and starting a
Adam Outland:business. So speak to that for a minute. What are some of these
Adam Outland:challenges that you found as the leader of the company building
Adam Outland:the business itself?
Josh Fox:I did something kind of unique Adam, I ended up
Josh Fox:hiring and working with many, many, many, many of my old
Josh Fox:friends here at the company. So I have friends that work here
Josh Fox:that I've known since middle school, I have friends that work
Josh Fox:at the company that I've known since summer camp, I have
Josh Fox:friends that work at the company that I went to college with, I
Josh Fox:have friends that I went to high school with, and the camaraderie
Josh Fox:and the friendships and the leaning on each other in the
Josh Fox:tough times and tough moments that we are here together. A
Josh Fox:group of people that I've known for 1020 30 years, has allowed
Josh Fox:any of those issues or storms to be weathered. It's such a
Josh Fox:positive way, because we all know each other for so long.
Adam Outland:That's great. One last question that we'll leave
Adam Outland:you with is this advice that you knowing everything that you know
Adam Outland:today that you would give your younger self, I mean, if you
Adam Outland:went back to the 21 year old, Josh, that's just completely
Adam Outland:University, going down this path that you've been down, what
Adam Outland:would be the one piece of advice you'd give yourself?
Josh Fox:I mean, I'm sure people say this. But this is
Josh Fox:really to need the one atom, you have to love what you do. If
Josh Fox:you're just there for a paycheck. If you're just doing
Josh Fox:something to make money, you're going to be burned out quick,
Josh Fox:you're going to be unhappy. Like when I say TGIM, like that's the
Josh Fox:truth. Like I love to go to work, I love the people I'm
Josh Fox:working with, I love the clients that I'm working with. And I
Josh Fox:love our mission. Our mission is to help businesses, our mission
Josh Fox:is to help small businesses reinvest in themselves. Like
Josh Fox:it's so incredible when we see the money that we've helped
Josh Fox:these businesses get and what they're doing with it, how
Josh Fox:they're reinvesting it into their businesses, how they're
Josh Fox:making their employees better how they're expanding their
Josh Fox:businesses, like the American dream.
Adam Outland:And for listeners, where can they find more of
Adam Outland:these resources and information on you?
Josh Fox:Our website's bottomlinesavings.com. And I'll
Josh Fox:leave you with this one, Adam, it's relax, have fun. What's the
Josh Fox:difference? And what I mean by that is like, relax, right?
Josh Fox:Like, don't take everything so seriously. Like, we'd sometimes
Josh Fox:take things way too seriously, like, just relax, you know, have
Josh Fox:fun meeting life is all about having fun. Life is not about
Josh Fox:not having fun, let me want to enjoy every day that we're on
Josh Fox:this earth. And then I think the last part is really the most
Josh Fox:impactful and like, what's the difference? Meaning that what
Josh Fox:seems so important today will seem so unimportant tomorrow,
Josh Fox:live in the moment, you know, like enjoy the day that's here,
Josh Fox:the only guarantee we have is today and enjoy it and live in
Josh Fox:the moment no matter what you're doing. And if you really are
Josh Fox:unhappy in your job or your career or what you're doing. The
Josh Fox:great thing is you can make a change. You can try something
Josh Fox:different, like go for it like take a risk like I did, like go
Josh Fox:find something you love to do.
Adam Outland:Well we'll share that message with our listeners.
Adam Outland:And I appreciate you taking the time that you did to jump on our
Adam Outland:show here at the action catalyst and share a little bit about
Adam Outland:what you do and the experiences that you've had. Thanks for
Adam Outland:joining us.
Josh Fox:Listen, you guys are amazing. I love what you're
Josh Fox:doing. I appreciate you having me on and really enjoyed the
Josh Fox:conversation.