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”.

Hello Action Catalyst listeners. Welcome

back. We have with us Josh Fox today CEO and co founder of

Bottom Line Concepts, a consulting firm that teams up

with organizations to assess the top line items that are

adversely affecting the business's profits. Please help

me in welcoming Josh Fox. Thanks for making the time. Josh, I

appreciate you being on here with us. And I'd love to start a

little bit early in your story. And then we can dive in to a big

part of what you do today. But I'd love to hear how you chose

the path of call it money in general, what did you get

focused on this aspect of business in your life.

It goes really, really, really far back, Adam,

in fact, my great grandfather worked on Wall Street. And so it

was my great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, what I

ever knew my entire life was, you know, my family working on

Wall Street. And in 1977, my father moved to Long Island, New

York, and he chose the shortest commute into the city, so that

he could be at work every day. And but what I do remember also

is that my father was, most importantly, as a family, man.

And so when that when the bell rang at four o'clock, he got

right on that train, and he made sure that he was home for dinner

with his family. And that was, I think, part of what shaped me as

a man today, knowing that my father put his family first. And

you know, work was important to him, but he wanted to always be

around for dinner and for soccer and swim practice. And, you

know, that was definitely something that made me a person

that was in full of integrity.

So unlike so many people, I mean, you you

literally have this literally in your blood generationally. But

but you ended up doing econ. And then what was your first gig

coming out of out of university?

I've only really had two jobs in my life. Right after

college, I became a independent financial advisor, where I was

advising either individuals or corporations on things like, you

know, health insurance plans, pension programs. So, you know,

very early on, I was advising individual families and small

corporations on how to set up benefit programs and how to do

investments.

But roughly what year was this that you were

doing the financial advisor?

1999, basically.

So you've been doing that almost a full 10

years when the financial crisis happened?

Yeah, that was the "aha" moment, Adam, you know, if

the listeners out there can really vividly remember the

mortgage meltdown of 2008. That's when I sat back, I was

working on Wall Street, I was following in my family's

footsteps. And all we saw in this country during the Oh,

eight meltdown was lots of companies just firing their

employees, you know, everybody needed to save money. Everybody

wanted to save their business. And it seemed like the quickest,

fastest way for businesses to just save money tomorrow was to

cut headcount. And that was not something that felt good to me,

that wasn't something that was a long term strategy. Like, let's

not cut headcount. And so I said to myself, was there a way to

start a business where we could go to some of the largest

corporations on Earth, and help them figure out ways to do one

of two things, to go back in time and look for refund past

opportunities where we could get the money back from the past?

Sometimes we could go back 20 3040 years, and which we've

done, so half of the model was going back and looking for

refunds, and the other half of the model was figuring out

strategies to help them save money on their expenses, without

sacrificing people without cutting headcount.

Do you feel that your experience prior had given

you insights before 2008? Were you were seeing a lot of just

overweight expenses in certain areas? What were you because I

feel like that's generally the role of an auditor to see that

side of the business. So what gave you that insight?

Well, simultaneously, Adam, I was actually voted to be

president of my condominium in New York City. Okay. And so I

was responsible for about 220 families, and as the President

of the building my job, unpaid job, volunteer job, right. Like

my volunteer job as the president of the building was to

help control the cost of the building. And so I was

renegotiating contracts with like, with the electricity and

the gas and the water. I was helping lower union fees. I was

looking for cheaper supplies for the buildings. I was looking for

bank accounts where we could get higher interest on our money.

Like I really use my financial skills that I had learned to

become this great president of one of the largest and newest

condominiums at the time in New York City. I got written up in

the Wall Street Journal I got written up in the New York

Times, I was protecting their investment and I was protecting

the building.

Yeah, so it was your as your volunteer job that

actually gave you the first insight. So because we have a,

we have 18 different companies in our family of companies for

the Southwestern Family of Companies. And we have some

shared corporate resources for things like marketing. And so

I'm just kind of playing this out as an example from like,

what I see day to day, so I can better understand it. But let's

say you hire brilliant marketing people, because they've got an

eye for marketing and how to build something, but someone in

marketing may not be trained around how to handle and vet

proposals or contracts with vendors, right? Is that kind of

what we're talking about, like where it might be a department

that's really skilled at their craft, but part of every

business units responsibility are going with outside vendors.

And so you're just assessing, are we doing what's right with

outside vendors, contracts? And that's one area that's being

squeezed by companies in some cases?

I mean, there's, there's a fancier term today

called procurements, you know, it used to be kind of

negotiations, or know that there's, there's companies that

are buying, you know, millions and 10s of millions of stuff

every day for their business. I mean, it could be pens and

pencils, it could be light bulbs, it could be anything that

they're buying to continue to run your business. And as you

grow as you acquire companies, as you, as you said, you have

all these businesses, like there's lots of inefficiencies,

you know, you might be using staples in one company, and

Office Depot in a different company, and you need to

coordinate, you know, buying the supplies, maybe from one vendor

and getting price breaks and getting better prices, because

you're able to consolidate that kind of stuff.

When companies grow quickly, they don't always

sit down and reflect on their buying power and how that

adjusts with scale.

But the other thing is the data, Adam, you know what I

mean? Like, if you're buying a pencil for $1, how do you know

if that pencil should be 80 cents, 70 cents, or 60 cents, if

you have our data from hundreds and 1000s of other companies on

what other companies were paying for that pencil, you have power,

you have knowledge to be able to go back to a vendor and say, Hi,

I know other clients that are using you that are paying 1020

30 40% less, I would like the same deal or close to the same

deal that you're giving my other clients. And that was the, you

know, the beginning of things like GPOs group purchasing

organizations where they would band together hundreds or 1000s

of companies, and they would go to vendors and they would say,

Listen, I have not one company, I have 1000 companies and I want

to buy these products for all my clients at a discount. And

that's where the GPOs have really been powerful.

One of the things I think you've shared is that

you say in many cases, you've seen over 50% of monthly

invoices containing errors or miscalculations that waste

money. But why is that error rate so high?

I mean, think about it, every time I go to dinner,

like a lot of people just like sign the cheque and they just

move off. Like it's very, very frequently when I look at the

bill at dinner or lunch, you're charged for an extra water or

you're charged for an extra coffee, you know, this eye dish

shouldn't have been included in the meal. Like it's just a

question of looking and reviewing and taking the extra

time to look at this stuff.

You're the guy at the dinner date that reviews the

receipt.

I think it's worth taking a few minutes to make

sure it's correct.

My wife would applaud you. I should do that

more. So I guess what particular areas of business? Are you most

likely to have hidden savings? Is it what you were mentioning

earlier where it's kind of the hard resources that a company

might use as they scale? like light bulbs, staples, like kind

of the office supplies? Or are there other hidden areas?

I think that companies that tend to have the most

opportunity for efficiencies and savings are the ones that have

the most locations, you know, once you're located in 20

states, 30 states 40 states, and you're all over the place like

how do you manage a business that has so many stores, and so

many locations? You know, one of the things that we've been doing

since the very beginning, one of the coolest programs that we

found out was something called unclaimed property. Like there

are so many lost checks out there in this country, where a

vendor will send a check to an office a store or location and

the business move the business change like they're not located

there anymore. And that money never ends up in the rightful

owner. So there's a shipment process in our country where the

vendor who wrote the check cannot keep the other vendors

money, they must sheet the money over to the state where they

initiated that check. And so like California is like number

two, New York is number one. I mean these states are holding

billions and billions and billions of dollars of launched.

Check See, that belongs to either individuals or belong to

corporations. And corporations don't necessarily even realize

that the money is available to them. And that's one of the most

unique programs that we've been doing here for 10 plus years, is

helping corporations identify unclaimed checks, and helping

them recover that money.

So there's just kind of a natural ROI for the

work that you do, because you're saving companies a lot of a lot

of money when they invest in that service.

Yeah, and we built a different model, Adam, you know,

in the fact that we were willing to do all of the work, we were

willing to do all of the research, we were willing to do

everything to take the project to completion. And our clients

never had to pay us anything until it was successful. So we

give them a very easy way to say yes to this, like, yeah, go get

me my money from the state of New York, or go get me my money

from the state of New Jersey. And if you can get me the money,

I'm happy to share a portion with you. So you really allow

the client to get the benefit without having to pay a fee

until it's done.

Internally, in your company, you have a sort of

a mantra of "thank God, it's Monday", which you believe is

really important philosophy for people talk about that. What

does that mean?

When you love what you do you love going to work? You

know, for me, I'm sad on Fridays, because the workweek is

over happy on Sunday night, because I know the next work

week is available. And we've helped so many businesses, Adam,

and when we think about the work that we've done, like all of the

wonderful benefits of what's happened to the money that we've

saved and recovered for these companies. One of the most

important things I think, that we see at corporations is what

kind of benefits packages are being offered to its employees,

retaining employees, hiring key employees, having great talent

is the key to a successful organization. So when people are

interviewing at companies, they're saying, what kind of

health insurance plan do you offer? Do you offer time off for

paternity and maternity leave? Do you offer retirement plans?

Do you match retirement plans? Do you still have pension

programs like that's very, very, very important to employees when

they're choosing a place to work. And so what we found is

that as we started to save and recover money for these

businesses, they were able to enhance and improve the benefits

packages that they offered to their employees to make it a

more attractive place to work.

I love that, thank God, it's Monday, that's a good

that's good mantra no matter what business someone's in,

right, you need to have that attitude around your line of

work. And speaking of work, this is so kind of shifting gears for

a second. Josh, we got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to our

podcast, as well there that are actually at the start of their

career in business. And in taking a chance on building

something, you know, 10 years in as a financial advisor. I mean,

it's 2008, we talked about the recession and your change of

heart focus with the line of work you did, but there's

something that it's in my head that I want you to answer is

this. I mean, I'm an executive coach, I work with a lot of

people in wealth management, 10 years into a financial advisor

career, it's hard to leave. I mean, you're making good money.

You're the president of your condo, like things are going

great. I get there's there's a big impact in the marketplace.

But like why take a risk to do this?

You know, Adam, 67% of American businesses are small

businesses. It's the heart of America. It's capitalism. It's

what makes America great that you can start something from

nothing, and build it into something awesome. And I wanted

to do that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to start

something from scratch. I remember when I was a kid, like

sitting with my grandmother, I was always interested in

building things. I love games and building things. And that's

really who I wanted to be. I wanted to provide an opportunity

to start a company and to grow a business. And you know, today,

we employ over 300 people that love to come to work that truly

believe in TGIM. We have people that work at the company where

there are husbands and wives that work here. There are you

know, mothers and fathers that work here, like there's like

family members that work for the company. And it's just such a

great atmosphere here. I am very, very, very, very

passionate about the environment and the oceans and 40 of us from

the company on a Saturday here in Florida. We gave up our

Saturday, we went down to the beach, we went there with

plastic bags, and we collected 124 pounds of plastic off of the

ocean. Like as the leader of the company, like that's the stuff

that inspires me. That's the stuff that makes me warm my

heart that we have a group of people here that started from a

small company, and then we had people who really care to go

clean up the oceans. I mean, that's pretty special.

I can appreciate that. That's awesome. You know,

there's no real Disney story if ever Anything goes perfect Josh,

right? Like there's and there's probably very few stories where

you start a business and everything works perfectly from

the beginning. And there's never a problem. And so let our

listeners in a little bit on this, because I feel like

everybody runs into a wall. I know a lot of our listeners run

into a wall when they're building and starting a

business. So speak to that for a minute. What are some of these

challenges that you found as the leader of the company building

the business itself?

I did something kind of unique Adam, I ended up

hiring and working with many, many, many, many of my old

friends here at the company. So I have friends that work here

that I've known since middle school, I have friends that work

at the company that I've known since summer camp, I have

friends that work at the company that I went to college with, I

have friends that I went to high school with, and the camaraderie

and the friendships and the leaning on each other in the

tough times and tough moments that we are here together. A

group of people that I've known for 1020 30 years, has allowed

any of those issues or storms to be weathered. It's such a

positive way, because we all know each other for so long.

That's great. One last question that we'll leave

you with is this advice that you knowing everything that you know

today that you would give your younger self, I mean, if you

went back to the 21 year old, Josh, that's just completely

University, going down this path that you've been down, what

would be the one piece of advice you'd give yourself?

I mean, I'm sure people say this. But this is

really to need the one atom, you have to love what you do. If

you're just there for a paycheck. If you're just doing

something to make money, you're going to be burned out quick,

you're going to be unhappy. Like when I say TGIM, like that's the

truth. Like I love to go to work, I love the people I'm

working with, I love the clients that I'm working with. And I

love our mission. Our mission is to help businesses, our mission

is to help small businesses reinvest in themselves. Like

it's so incredible when we see the money that we've helped

these businesses get and what they're doing with it, how

they're reinvesting it into their businesses, how they're

making their employees better how they're expanding their

businesses, like the American dream.

And for listeners, where can they find more of

these resources and information on you?

Our website's bottomlinesavings.com. And I'll

leave you with this one, Adam, it's relax, have fun. What's the

difference? And what I mean by that is like, relax, right?

Like, don't take everything so seriously. Like, we'd sometimes

take things way too seriously, like, just relax, you know, have

fun meeting life is all about having fun. Life is not about

not having fun, let me want to enjoy every day that we're on

this earth. And then I think the last part is really the most

impactful and like, what's the difference? Meaning that what

seems so important today will seem so unimportant tomorrow,

live in the moment, you know, like enjoy the day that's here,

the only guarantee we have is today and enjoy it and live in

the moment no matter what you're doing. And if you really are

unhappy in your job or your career or what you're doing. The

great thing is you can make a change. You can try something

different, like go for it like take a risk like I did, like go

find something you love to do.

Well we'll share that message with our listeners.

And I appreciate you taking the time that you did to jump on our

show here at the action catalyst and share a little bit about

what you do and the experiences that you've had. Thanks for

joining us.

Listen, you guys are amazing. I love what you're

doing. I appreciate you having me on and really enjoyed the

conversation.