Mastering Financial Resilience: Tom Brainsky’s Journey

Olivia: Welcome to the Control Your Cash Podcast, where we talk to business owners about how to regain control of their cash flow. Today, we have Tom Brainsky with us from ProfitMax.

Welcome, Tom. 

Thomas: Hello. Thank you.

Olivia: So, Tom, tell us a little bit about your journey and we thank you so much for joining us today. And, um, I know that you’re going to provide our listeners with a ton of valuable content.

Thomas: Well, absolutely. I intend to do that. And thank you so much for having me. Um, as far as my journey goes, uh, I am a through and through entrepreneur. Um, not one of the greatest students that ever existed in the history of high school, uh, but, uh, ended up, uh, flailing almost out of high school, managed to.

Passed by the skin of my teeth, um, got into the working world and realized that that was actually more where I belonged. I did a series of crazy jobs in my life and then, uh, ended up taking to aviation. I had fan, I still maintain a fantastic career, uh, within, uh, aviation. I still own a company that provides really awesome, unique, niche services to airlines that do charter flights that led to, um.

Uh, me entering the dental field because those two don’t go together whatsoever. Uh, but when your clients are airlines and you know, they owe you $60,000-100,000 and you wake up on a Friday morning and go to the toilet and grab your phone as most of us do, uh, and then you look and you go, Oh, look at that. Oh, another one went bankrupt.

So there goes that money. You’re not going to get. And then subsequently you’ll get sued for something called preferential payments, which is awesome, by the way. So I’ve really mastered, um, dealing with those types of lawsuits. I don’t need attorneys anymore. I just call opposing counsel, make a deal, and I make those go away.

Uh, but, uh, that kind of led me into dental because it was something that wasn’t aviation. I thought, you know, maybe I’ll, uh, buy a dental laboratory. Um, it’s available. It’s nearby. It’s something, uh, you know, different basket, different eggs kind of thing. Very difficult business by the way. Uh, and, and, and that one ended up, uh, opening up an opportunity where, uh, recently, um, I was able to get my, my ERTC and we’ll go into that a little bit later in the call.

Uh, and, and with that, I met my partner now in ProfitMax. So that is another venture that I’m in now. And, uh, and she convinced me to, to join her and we’ll be kind of focusing on that today because that one really lines up with, uh, you know, what you guys do. So, um. Uh, ProfitMax is, uh. It provides accounting, tax, uh, tax guidance, tax strategies, ERC submission, or, you know, research and development tax credits, things like that, that can just make a world of a difference for business owners.

And so, so there’s the fit, and that’s how we came to where we are today.

Tim: That’s quite a, quite a journey, Tom, and I’m sure it comes with many scars and bruises along the way.

Thomas: Uh, Yes, yes, plenty of that. Lots of really hard lessons learned and in multiple sectors. Um, and, uh, I think if there was one word that could be used to describe me, it would probably be resilient. I’m just unwilling to stay down because I’ve had plenty of body shots that have, that really should have knocked me out, but I just, I don’t know, maybe I’m stupid, I just keep getting back up.

Tim: Well, you know, um, that’s an interesting point because most successful business owners, entrepreneurs, it, you know, it’s not all unicorn and rainbows. 

Thomas: It’s never unicorns and rainbows.

Tim: Yeah, so there and I think the struggles along the way and those times where we get knocked down are the times of great growth and. So if you could share with us maybe one of those times where you really got knocked down, what were you feeling?

How did you get through it? And what, what was your biggest takeaway?

Thomas: Well, uh, I probably have one of the most unique knockdown, knockout, dragout stories that exist. Um, There was, uh, this actually happened, I think, uh, last summer, summer ago, I think, maybe, I can’t remember, it’s all a blur, but, uh, running a dental laboratory, I have, uh, I have employees, technicians, equipment, you know, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a brick and mortar business, and, um, I was, uh, taking my wife’s car to, uh, get fixed because, uh, her door handle was broken, so I took the car to, you know, the dealer on an average, you know, mundane Tuesday or Wednesday morning, I forget, and, uh, I was in the shuttle coming back from the dealer, and I received a phone call from someone who worked for me.

It was my HR manager, and she was very upset at me. I can’t even to this day tell you exactly why, but something really torqued her up bad, and she was screaming at me, and I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down. I, I almost felt bad for the guy next to me who’s driving because I, I just couldn’t figure out what was going on and she’s yelling at me that I don’t have a company anymore and when I got to work, she basically had fired my whole company, told them all that the company was sold, uh, that the company didn’t exist anymore and no one had jobs anymore, go home, good luck, and of course they would take that from HR as being legit.

Of course, if I sold the company, somebody better tell me, did I get a good deal and who bought it? When was the closing? None of this I knew. And, and so I literally had no company after years of trying to build this thing. And it was just gone, you know, instantly. And, and I had to kind of put it all together.

So there was a few people I was able to salvage that day. And, uh, one of them was this great kid. I had hired this homeless kid a couple of weeks before and gave him a job. And he was really starting to excel and appreciate, you know, what he was doing. And he stuck around with me and I taught him how to do customer service because we immediately had to figure out how to service our customers.

Um, And then, uh, you know, while I had him trying to let the customers know that we wouldn’t be picking up or delivering that day, because. Well, we had no staff because our person just let everyone go, which is insane. Thank God. We had tremendous support from our clients. They were very understanding. They were like, my God, I can’t believe anything like that happened.

Either can I, but it did. Um, and, uh, and, and so the rest of the day, it was just a matter of trying to take stock, figure out, you know, fire by fire, what, what do I have to do to bring this thing back online? How do I make this function again? How do I get the employees back? And so I was able to at least get everyone to agree to come in the next day and have a little town hall meeting, a heart to heart.

And, um, and, and through that experience, I’ve been able to, uh, learn and grow with transparency, unlike most business owners have ever experienced. Uh, there was a trust that was broken. I didn’t even do it, but it was broken. And so, uh, you know, it’s, tears were shed on both sides. And how do we put this thing back together?

And, and we were actually able to create a very cohesive team, uh, almost in, in moonshot fashion, uh, and be closer and stronger than we ever were before. And so, uh, if you want to talk about a challenge, having a business just disappear on you, and one day and having to put it all back together, the next. I.

I can’t think of anything worse in my life. And I mean, I’ve, I’ve had some really unusual experiences. I, I’ve had, I’ve had a, a Minister of Oil in the, in, in Kuwait, personally threatened to put me in jail through circumstances that I did not create. Um, I’ve been, you know, I’ve had, uh, French, no, I’ve had, uh, Mexican Federales hold me at gunpoint.

I’ve had guns. Uh, I’ve had, uh, been escorted out at, uh, gunpoint in, in Jordan during, you know, major combat operations during one of the wars. Uh, it’s, I’ve had some pretty bad days. Yeah, but none of them compared to that.

Tim: Wow. 

So what were you feeling? Like what, you know, I, I, I can, I can think of several emotions, but What were you feeling when you were going through all that crap?

Thomas: Um, well, first of all, uh, one of the managers that, that worked for me was very, very upset. And so again, I do feel bad for the dude that dropped me off. Uh, the guy was coming at me and like a raging bull and there were employees that were holding him back. And I don’t know whether it was the normalcy bias or not, but I literally was like, no, no, no, you don’t understand.

We’re going towards him as he’s wanting to kill me. Uh, you know, you don’t understand it, you know, and trying to argue with him and eventually employees like just go in the building, go to it because they couldn’t really hold it back. And he ended up calming down. Thank goodness. And he’s just a godsend to have on staff to this day. Um, but you know, so so there was that there was this this, you know as far as emotions go you, you, you have confusion. Um, you know, and and then you have fear. I mean, there’s this tremendous fear of everything that i’ve, i’ve put into this is gone. Do I have to sell everything? You know the unknown so you’ve got the fear, the anxiety, the stomach is in knots.

I mean, you want to talk about not sleeping that night. I there’s never been a night where I’ve been that wound up and unable to, to, to sleep because you just have that much stress on you, because you don’t know if you’re actually going to even have a company by the time you come back, no one had agreed to stay working with me.

They just agreed to talk to me. And so there was just so much unknown. And, and so working through the fire like that, while still trying to service the clients and do what I could to patch up. As much as I could to salvage what could be salvaged until this thing could be brought back online. Uh, just, in a word, Tim, insane levels of stress.

Tim: Yeah, I can imagine. Well, it’s a testament to your resilience that you’re able to get, you know, to obviously get through that and, and get through it, uh, not only successfully, but to, you know, to certainly to thrive. So, um, tell us a little bit about ProfitMax.

Thomas: So, ProfitMax, uh, I joined ProfitMax, um, sort of unexpectedly. Uh, I did not, I didn’t have any aspirations, uh, to, to jump into the… Tax field. Um, it’s never been in my wheelhouse, but, uh, I had met my partner Stacy, uh, at a, at a, um, a business convention. And, um, you know, she and I, I guess both wanted a good seat.

So we were like first people downstairs. Uh, and I mean, Tim, you know, Stacy, so you could probably actually imagine. That being true. Uh, and, and so I met this woman and you know, what do you do? What do you do kind of thing? And she tells me, Oh, you know, I help people their ERC. I’m like, I have no idea what that is.

She goes, Oh, you know, it’s this thing and it’s from the CARES Act and you know, you’re probably qualify. You’d probably get money back. How many employees do you have? So she’s asked me questions and you know, I said, well, I’ll have to check with my CPA. So, you know, at a break I run upstairs, I go to the bathroom because I mean, it’ what you gotta do, uh, and, and, and then I, I check with the CPA and my CPA is like, ah, yeah, you know, I don’t think you’re going to qualify.

You know, you make money during COVID. It’s, you know, so I went back downstairs. I said, Hey, you know, I ran into her. I’m like, Hey, by the way, you know, my CPA said, no, you know, you’re, uh, you’re not going to qualify. She goes, okay, why don’t you just. After the show, hook up with me, we’ll talk, you know, schedule time Tuesday, uh, and, uh, and, and, and we’ll see if you actually qualify.

So, she sent me a link, we filled out everything on the link, and, uh, oh look at that! Uh, we qualified! For over six figures. My CPA could have screwed me out of six figures. I mean, you wanna talk about something that really bothers you? That really bothered me, because they were so nonchalant about it. And so that, that’s, that shot up a red flag.

A long story short is, uh, I did process my ERC, uh, through, uh, her company ProfitMax and, um, got everything back. Everything’s wonderful. I couldn’t imagine this having no knowledge of this before I met her and and I, I pushed her so hard. I said, you know what, you’ve, you’ve been so helpful to me. Let me help you.

I am deadly at trade shows. I mean, I can sell anything to, you know, to anyone on the floor of a trade show. Absolutely deadly. And, and I said, there’s this trade show. It’s a dental thing. It’s dental technology. I realize it’s probably doesn’t make sense if I, you know didn’t know about this. I guarantee there’s hundreds if not thousands of people that don’t know about this.

Just go, I’m gonna be at the show anyway. I’ll stand at your booth. I’ll help you out a little bit, you know, while I’m doing my business there. And, and so I really forced her hand and, and of course she saw me in action. Good. And, uh, and, and so, uh, her husband and I, uh, lemme, sorry, her husband, uh, and her sat me down at dinner one night and they’re like, um, You need to get into this.

This is, this is definitely something you can do. Um, and your ability to, to connect with people and help people is unbelievable. I mean, they were just very complimentary of it and was like can I at least make some money doing this? You know? Yes. Okay, great. And so that’s kind of how this started. And, and I really got involved with her and, and got to see what the company does and, and how they help people.

And I mean, I have to tell you, you know, I do it a little bit differently just because I, I do love helping people to me. My, one of the biggest motivating things is to have someone just fill out the survey. And I love to get on a zoom call with them instead of just send them an email and say, Oh, Hey, by the way, you know, you qualified.

I got the email, you know, uh, but, uh, I, I love to just get on a call and face to face and say, listen, you just qualified for $250,000. I had one where I was so excited. I said, listen, you just qualified for $1.2 million and to see their faces. And, and to see what that can do for a business owner. And I mean, you want to talk about impact. Tim, what would you do with 1.2 million dollars? Just think about it. That’s impact.

Tim: It would definitely improve my golf swing.

Thomas: I mean, Olivia, what would your dad, what would your dad be like if all of a sudden he qualifies for this and about six to eight weeks later these checks start rolling in? Man’s happy, isn’t he?

Olivia: Yeah, yeah, because I, I mean, I always say this, um, I would argue that most of life’s frustrations come from not having access to money when you really need it. And then number 2, I would say is paying more in taxes than you need to.

Thomas: Oh, my gosh. And I mean that you want to talk about a lesson learned. That was a huge lesson learned. So not only did I fire my CPAs, but now I also moved all of my accounting over to the firm that I now work with. Uh, and we’re partnered with an organization called Lifetime Advisors. But, you know, they do a lot of heavy lifting for us.

Um, but, uh, Having now learned and seen what this does, first of all, I can say most small businesses out there that have between say five and maybe 20 employees, you know, some of the, I would say the average that we see as far as people recovering their ERCs is around $250,000, you know, for a small business, that is no joke, you know, for mom and pop shops have been working really hard and they’ve got their employees and they, they toil away in their business.

They’ve been working and they don’t know. And the accountants aren’t doing it because the accountants, they do what they do really well. They look backwards, they do taxes, they try and find deductions. The deductions they’re comfortable with, that are quick and dirty and easy because they’ve got thousands of things to file.

And I’m not trying to knock the CPAs, but that’s sort of the lane that they live in. And so when clients will go to them and say, you know, Hey, tell me about this or tell me about research and development tax credits. Yeah, they don’t really want to do it. So it just becomes this discouraged thing. It’s too much work or they’re not really good at it.

You know, conversely, you’ve got these pop ups now with this ERC thing, it’s crazy. And I guarantee all of your listeners have been receiving phone calls left and right, over and over, did you know that your employees and you’re eligible for blah, blah, blah, blah. Are, are they like accounting firms? Do they, do they do strategic tax, strategic tax planning?

No. So all they do is they’ve really gotten into their, let us just do this for you, we’re going to submit this for you, and we’re going to make money doing this. So they’re going to make their money doing that. But the problem with that is, What if they do it wrong? Or what if it does create an audit? Are they going to defend you during an audit?

Well, the answer to that is no. Or if they do, do you really want someone who’s just a pop up defending you on an audit? Probably not. So that’s why I really liked what Stacey had going, because you will have audit protection. So, anything that our organization does, they’re going to make sure it’s absolutely right and conservative and not go for the moon crazy because they don’t want to trigger audits either.

And if there are, then they’re going to sit in that first chair. And so there’s, there’s a lot of reasons why it makes a lot of sense. And to me, I really wanted to get in on that. And once I got in and started getting my feet wet and realizing what we could do, then it was fun to get on calls with, with clients who didn’t qualify for ERC.

They didn’t have enough employees. Maybe they weren’t in business at that time. Uh, but then it’s like, you can help them with your taxes. And it’s like, Oh wow, this is really fun. You know, just like me, it’s like you could help erase people’s tax bill. I mean, you know, you can, you can increase profits a few different ways.

You could either sell more, so sell more products, right? Uh, you can cut your expenses. Or you could pay no taxes. That’s about the three ways that you could really increase your profits. And, and to be part of that and helping business owners do that, the, the, the biggest stumbling block that I see is that most small businesses have no fricking clue because they do their thing.

They’re busy, their heads, their knee deep, you know, their, their, their, their heads are in the weeds. They’re knee deep in it. They’ve got to worry about their vehicle maintenance. They’ve got to worry about maybe their employees and their medicals. And they got to worry about, are we, you know, making enough money?

You know, how are we doing on sales? Do we need to cut the cost? All these things that you think about as a business owner day in and day out. When somebody talks to him about taxes, no, no, no, I got a CPA. I’m good. Are you though? Are you really? Because I guarantee all of them would say yes. Uh, uh. They’re really not.

It’s not something they really know about. And so, unless the right questions get asked, unless it really gets pointed out, they’re going to miss it. And they’re going to miss out on a lot. You know, I’ll give you an example. Um, dentists. Here’s something I know about, right? I own a dental laboratory. Dental laboratories and dentists, all of them, almost all, qualify for a research and development tax credit. That they can get every year somewhere between say maybe, you know, $8,000 and $30,000 a year alone, just that one thing CPAs don’t want to touch it. They don’t want to touch it because it’s too hard. It takes too much time. They do not have the time. They’ve got thousands of, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of filings.

They’ve got to do extensions. They got to do then additional filings. They’ve got to do, they’ve got to go what gets them their bread and butter. So this is what we do. We, we focus on the areas that are different. They can help people in ways that most CPAs can’t, and I mean, you know, it’s like, yeah, look at it this way, right?

So CPAs, they got a rear view mirror. They look in the rear mirror. What did you do? How can we help you with what you did? A strategist looks forward through the windshield. What are you going to do in the next three to five years? Are you going to have any events that trigger, you know, large taxable hits?

Okay, what can we do to mitigate those? And all the strategies that are done can then be shared with those CPAs. Now, we have our own CPAs on staff, if people want to work with us, that’s fine, but they don’t have to. But at least by, by, by thinking ahead and working that direction, you can really lower your tax bill.

And I’m telling you, I’m a small business owner. I’ve been operating as a small business owner in different sectors for 20 plus, 25, 25 years. Didn’t know, no idea. Had different accountants. No idea

Tim: I read a study that said 72 percent of people think that taxes are too high, but 93 percent of people overpay in their taxes.

Thomas: That is actually correct. 93% overpaying their taxes, and of that 93% they’re actually overpaying somewhere between 34 and 71%, which I mean, hello? That basically, I mean, what that boils down to guys is that that means that there is a 7% chance that your taxes are spot on.

Olivia: Those are pretty low odds.

Thomas: It’s, it’s, it’s astonishingly low, but for all the reasons I’ve outlined, it all makes sense. I mean, I just learned today that, uh, there are hundreds of thousands of CPAs that are retiring who are not being replaced. So if you think about it this way, uh, if all of these CPAs start retiring and there’s not enough to replace them, that means the CPAs that do exist are only going to get busier, meaning that they will have even less time to devote to really trying to maximize the amount that you can save in taxes.

It’s only getting worse.

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Olivia: Tom, you seem really passionate about helping people save on these taxes. Tell us a little bit about for the listeners who may not know or may not have gotten one of those pop ups on the phone, what the ERC is and, and what a good candidate would look like to qualify.

Thomas: Well, let me predicate this by saying that even though I’ve qualified for it, I got mine. Hallelujah. Thrilled. ERC is one of the stupidest creations the government has ever done. I mean, it really is. Um, thrilled to have it. It’s wonderful. But, uh, it, it is essentially, uh, during the CARES Act, uh, ERC was established, or ERTC, Employee Retention Tax Credit.

And it was basically done, uh, during COVID to encourage businesses to keep their employees, right? And… So initially you could, you had to have less than 100 employees. I mean, they had all these restrictions and nobody was taking advantage of it. So 2001 rolls around and, and Congress and the president revise it and open up the

Tim: 2021, Tom?

Thomas: What’s that?

Tim: You said 2001, you meant 2021. 

Thomas: I’m sorry 2021, uh, they, they revise the law. Which basically now says that you could have, you know, uh, up to 500 employees and you don’t just simply have to show a loss. You could show a loss, but you know, show, show how you were affected during COVID. And this is kind of where a lot of the CPAs will just take the quick and easy and say, well, you know, I’ll work with you client or you client because you did have a loss, but they don’t want to actually do the heavier labor of showing, you know, well, if you didn’t have a loss, how were you affected?

You know, did you have to, put up ridiculous pieces of plastic or redo your ventilation system or have to buy, you know, this or that, you know, um, was it impossible to find employees? Uh, so anyway, this program was put in place and it is not actually based on the, uh, on the actual physical numbers of your payroll.

It is a payroll. It’s a payroll tax refund, but it’s not actually based on your payroll. This is what I mean. It’s ridiculous. And so you have three quarters in 2000, which, you know, any W-2 full time employee, uh, would be, uh, you know, worth $5,000 or up to $5,000. And then for the three quarters in 2021, those same employees could be worth, you know, $26,000. Where do they come up with these numbers? I, I don’t know. I mean, it’s, that’s government at work right there. However, it exists. It does expire. This will not last forever. And so that’s why, you know, everyone’s phones are just being blown up, you know, with every pop up that there is going, hey, you know, we could submit this for you, you know, and, and, you know, that’s just, just be careful, you know.

You want to you want to go with a firm that’s that’s very reputable, been around for a long time. At least our firm’s done well over $1.3 billion in recoveries with zero instances so far of any audits and, you know, zero instances where mistakes were made. As a matter of fact, some of our clients, um, we, we, we did it.

We actually, we did have one where, where an audit, um, a letter was sent from the IRS and the IRS had screwed up and they had to own up to their own screw up. And, and there was an audit that took place that actually found money that the CPA, uh, screwed up and the CPA got it wrong. So we had to run cleanup on that.

Um, so it’s um, It’s an unusual program. It does expire and I encourage all of your uh, listeners and viewers if you have not looked into it. Now would be a really good time to do it. Um, even through our website and I’ll make sure that I give you guys the link. Sign up the link. Just go to go to the link.

Put your information in it’s free and we’ll tell you what you could expect to get back. And it’s a rough estimate. I mean, you know, we’ll give you that. And if you want to move forward, then get all your documentation against get your real estimate. But it’s going to be pretty close. And I’ll give that to you.

So that way, you know, any of your viewers and listeners can at least go in and just get a free estimate and find out. You have nothing to lose, except if you A, take no action, at which point you could possibly be like me and almost lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because your CPA is not telling you what to do. I’m not bitter.

Olivia: Oh,

Thomas: I’m smiling.

Tim: Tell us about, uh, you mentioned, uh, research and development, the R& D credit. Tell us a little bit about that.

Thomas: So that was something that, uh, started back in, uh, 1981. It’s been revised several times throughout the years to make it easier. It’s basically the government trying to, uh, help support small businesses. Uh, and, and, and, you know, usher in research and development. Uh, if you were trying to get it in 1981, very similar to ERC, most wouldn’t qualify, too difficult to get.

And I mean, they don’t make it super, super simple, but it’s also not the most complicated thing in the world either. And believe it or not, most businesses that actually work on process improvements or work with technology and they implement this or that to, to make their businesses better, smarter, faster.

There’s a pretty good possibility that they would qualify and it’s an annual tax credit. So as long as they keep continue working on their business and doing improvements towards their businesses. They’re probably gonna qualify. I’ll give you an example. Let’s talk about a dentist or a dental laboratory again, my wheelhouse, you know if a dentist gets one of those like intraoral scanners So instead of taking, you know physical impressions that make people want to choke to death and they put the little wand in your mouth to you know Well, that’s something that they’re doing They get it, they’ve got to test it, learn how to use it, put it in the park, they’re probably going to qualify.

Uh, you know, 3D printing is now a thing, or, you know, chair side milling is now a thing. And so there’s all these things that are out there for many businesses where people use technology, they bring in new equipment, they have to learn how to use it. And there’s time that goes into that. And then there’s testing and tuning and, you know, losses of products and materials because you’ve wasted it as you’re trying to get better at it.

And, and that’s what this, this, uh, this law is out there for this deduction, uh, is for a tax credit, I guess is for, is for that. And so that’s something that can be applied for every single year. And no, most CPAs do not want to touch it. It’s a lot more work. It’s not that it’s hard work, but it’s just simply.

More work.

Tim: Interesting. You know, it’s, it’s funny because one of the areas that we identify for people. So we, we view things through the lens of, are you in control of your money or is somebody else in control of your money? Cause whoever controls your cashflow controls your life. And we identify five areas where people are.

Unknowingly and unnecessarily giving up control of their money. And one of them is taxes. And, you know, having stated that, I was totally unaware of this Research and Development Tax Credit. So that’s certainly something that I think, you know, you and I could talk about areas of collaboration where we could help our clients, if they’re eligible for this credit, too. You know, apply for it and qualify for

Thomas: Why not? What do they have to lose?

Olivia: Absolutely. And Tom, just for clarification, um, the difference, what’s the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction?

Thomas: Uh, deductions would be, you know, you, you bought a, you bought a house, you got interest, you’re gonna deduct, you know, your interest on the house. You know, a credit is, I’ve done these tasks, we’re gonna send you a check.

Olivia: It’s a dollar for dollar reduction in the tax bill, correct?

Thomas: Yeah you know, like if you look at the ERTC, uh, program, uh, there are six quarters that you could qualify and you will receive six different checks from the government. This is, comes to you in the form of a check and you cash the check. You feel like adding a, you know, garage to your house. You have the garage.

You want to buy a car, buy a car. You want to throw it into a life insurance policy and throw it into a life insurance policy. Um, you know, it is. Cash money to you versus just less that you have to pay.

Olivia: Absolutely. Well, that’s a huge value, especially for, for business owners, because I know, um, certainly speaking with business owners, they’re always looking for ways to save on their taxes and to optimize their taxes and, you know, ultimately make the machine of the business run as smoothly as possible.

And. Looking at different strategies to do that is certainly very valuable. So we appreciate you speaking about that. Um, and the different ways that, that we’re able to, to do that. And, um, that ProfitMax brings that to the clients.

Thomas: Well, you know, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. And, you know, I do want to mention one other thing that I think is, is very important. Uh, this is something that would normally come up with, uh, a ProfitMax based conversation, depending on the direction that the client wants to go, which is just asking.

Asking a business owner, what are their goals? You know, if a business owner’s goal is to work in their business all the time and, you know, be there, be their own janitor, be their own lawnmower, be, be one who just works in the business all the time, uh, that’s, that’s one thing. But a lot of business owners get into business cause they, they like the idea that they’ll have freedom. Yeah, how many business owners out there really feel that right or they like the idea of not having to think about payroll, how are we going to make payroll or how are we going to make it manage that cash flow to where I don’t have to think about it that much. And so, you know, we also have programs in place that can actually help business owners if their goal is to actually enjoy and have a good time. With their business yet still have that business, not as a job, but as an asset, asset that makes the money. You know, we, we, uh, we invest, right? So, you know, I invest in stock, right? So you invest in Apple. I like Apple. Um, you know, I’ve invested in Amazon. I don’t work for Apple. I don’t work for Amazon.

Yet that is an asset that makes me money. You can look at a business and do the same thing. But most business owners can’t even do that because they’re too deep in the weeds. So if they have certain goals, if they want to be free, then we actually can also help them and guide them to actually scale their business up, to grow that business into something, to become that asset, to give them the freedom.

Maybe at some point they even have a CEO. And so they could actually manage and run their business from the beach. These are things that are absolutely possible for a lot of businesses if they would take the time to go, You know what, I need to take a step back from my day to day, what I normally do, and have a conversation.

And so we’re more than willing to have those conversations as well.

Tim: Right, so most business owners are so busy working in their business, they don’t have any time to work on their business.

Thomas: And when they’re working on their business, Tim, chances are they’re working on their next marketing plan or campaign or their social media posting, which, by the way, is still technically working in your business if you think about it that way, but to take it and just kind of open up that that window a little bit more and look at it from a different You know, vantage point, a lot of things that you’re doing to work on your business might still actually be working in your business.

So you go back a little bit further and you go, okay, well, you know, what if I could replace myself and this thing still makes plenty of money. And then, you know, a few years later, if that’s my plan to sell in three, five, six, 10 years later, maybe I can get this thing into like private equity, you know, and get, you know, seven times normalized, you know, EBITDA or five times normalized EBITDA.

Well, you’re not going to get that unless you’re really well structured. And that’s something that doesn’t just come with most companies. It comes with people who can come in there and actually help the company structure for that to actually happen.

Tim: Right.

Olivia: Absolutely. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially because there are so many business owners looking to retire and get out of their business. But how do you make sure that asset doesn’t dwindle when you leave, when you walk out that door? And that’s something that I know a lot of family business owners and small business owners struggle with.

Thomas: How do you maximize the asset before you sell it? Many

Olivia: Yeah to get the most out of it.

Thomas: Right. Many business owners do not think in those terms they should. But they don’t. Because they’re too busy with their head down.

Tim: Right.

Thomas: I mean, I’m guilty of it. I’ve been that guy. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I’m professional when it comes to that. But we all are.

And it’s just a matter of, you know, once the scales come off the eyes. And you can’t unsee something. What do you do with that?

Olivia: It doesn’t matter how you start. It matters how you finish, Tom.

Thomas: Correct.

Tim: Well, Tom, it’s been a pleasure having you here. Um, how can our, our listeners get in touch with you if they’re interested in, in, uh, talking with you?

Thomas: I am so glad you asked. Uh, you can certainly find us at www.profitmax.co. That’s www.profitmax.co profitmax.co. And uh, also, like I said, I’m gonna give you guys a link and if you just wanna put it with the, uh, show information, uh, it will be a link to the survey for, uh, ERC and I’ll probably also give you a link just to get in contact with me directly.

And feel free to reach out. I’m free to talk to. Your life can change. Big numbers can roll in. Massive numbers that you never expected could end up in your bank account in the next three to six months. All you have to do is just pick up the phone. The phone is not that heavy. It really isn’t. Or, or, or click the mouse.

It’s, it’s not, it’s not heavy. And see what can happen. You won’t know until you look.

Tim: Yeah, it’s certainly worth a phone call, right?

Thomas: Doesn’t hurt. I’m a nice guy. Look at me. I’m smiling.

Olivia: We could attest to that, Thomas. We appreciate you so much. And if anyone wants to get in contact with Tom, please do so. We have links in the show notes and, um, you could certainly reach him at profitmax.co. So thank you so much, Tom.

Thomas: Thank you guys so much. It’s been a pleasure.

Tim: Thanks, Tom.

Thomas: You bet.