Evolving Business Minds

Guide to Financial Stability in Business with Brandon Neely | #117

• Andy Silvius • Episode 117

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Unlock the secrets to financial resilience with Brandon Neely, a seasoned entrepreneur and wealth stabilizer, who shares his incredible transition from coffee shop co-owner to financial strategist. Discover through Brandon's personal anecdotes and hard-earned wisdom how he and his wife, Amanda, cultivated a thriving community hub while navigating the pitfalls of entrepreneurship. This episode promises to equip you with the fundamental principles of financial clarity and the 'STILL' method for managing your money with intention.

Embark on a journey through the challenges of business ownership, as we dissect the critical role of marketing, the impact of location, and the lifeline that liquidity provides during a crisis. Brandon's compelling stories bring to life the importance of balancing business finances and social impact while offering practical strategies for growth. From the 'Profit First' system to essential client retention tactics, this conversation is brimming with actionable advice for steering your business towards sustainable success.

As we ponder the future of entrepreneurship in an AI-dominated landscape, Brandon imparts a vital reminder of the enduring power of human connection amidst our automated world. He encourages listeners to delve deep into their business numbers and personal motivations, reinforcing the importance of aligning purpose with practice. Join us for a thought-provoking exchange that celebrates Brandon's contributions and extends an invitation for you to engage with us, shaping the future of the Evolving Business Minds podcast.

Episode Sponsored by: Olive Branch Bookkeeping, Inc

Message from our sponsor: A profitable business needs a tailored financial solution for growth. Understanding your needs and what matters most to you is our #1 priority. We have put together a bookkeeping service that will allow you to take control of your business and future growth.

📲 Schedule a discovery call with Olive Branch Bookkeeping, Inc here: https://calendly.com/caryn-23/discover_conversation

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Andy Silvius:

All right, welcome everyone to another episode of the Evolving Business Minds podcast. Our guest today is a serial entrepreneur profit first and bank on yourself. Professional and the co-host of the Wealth Wisdom Financial Podcast with his wife and business partner, amanda. I want to welcome Brandon Neely to the show.

Brandon Neely:

Hey Andy, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Andy Silvius:

Absolutely, man. It's a pleasure to have you on. I'm excited to talk about some of your experiences that you've gone through. Before we go into any of that, though, why don't you give us take a few minutes and just let everyone know listening an overview of what you?

Brandon Neely:

currently do and how they can connect with you. Yeah, I would say I'm a reluctant financial professional, meaning I got in, did not know that there's a lot of people that have opinions about what we do or the financial world. All I know is this concept I do a lot of stuff with infinite banking and banking yourself. A lot of that stuff is cornerstone. That helped me in my past and I do a lot of full financial analysis. I call myself a wealth stabilizer. You can find us at wealthwisdomfpcom and we have YouTube channel podcasts. But mainly, if you want to find us, just go to wealthwisdomfpcom and schedule a call. Love to chat with anybody who wants to build a good foundation. Perfect.

Andy Silvius:

So I want to dig into your story of you know, you and your wife owned a coffee shop in chicago, and so I'd like to dig into your journey of of everything from opening and operating your coffee shop and then, uh, you know, just tell us a little bit about how it got started yeah, do we have like one of those like rewind machines or I don't know, a toll booth that we can go back in the past?

Brandon Neely:

If you remember that movie?

Andy Silvius:

Bill and Ted.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah. That's a good one.

Brandon Neely:

I feel like I do that a lot and, man, if I knew what I knew now, I probably would be in a different place altogether. Right, when we started our business, we wanted to make a difference in the world. We still want to make a difference in the world. We still want to make a difference in the world. We just know that there's a lot of corruption in finance. So we wanted to make a difference in the world. So we were like coffee, number one commodity in the world. Americans are number one consumer, yet the poorest countries are often coffee growing countries. Something's a lot misaligned there.

Brandon Neely:

And then we were like hey, we also want to create a community space. So we were like oh, cheers is awesome. I like that show. Uh, let's, let's create a place that everybody knows your name. And. And so we we went on that journey. Um, and the business name was overflow.

Brandon Neely:

Uh, what I learned in that business is you cannot overflow if you don't take care of yourself and a lot of businesses, business owners now being hindsight's 2020, what I learned was man, we all like go into this entrepreneur, endeavor to make a difference, change the world, and oftentimes we're less to get paid, less to do any of it and we're like it'll happen. Eventually Everybody's going to buy my product or thing is, and you realize your mom doesn't even subscribe to your channel or whatever you know, and like, yeah, yeah, I liked it. Uh, you know, whatever it's, it's. So I I learned a lot of what not to do in that business and I'm glad that I had a business partner, uh, as well. I don't know if you do. You know the EOS system? Um, it's called traction, traction. Gino Wickman.

Andy Silvius:

Okay, I'm not familiar with it.

Brandon Neely:

So what I like about EOS is it's really talking about. There's an entrepreneur and then an integrator.

Andy Silvius:

Oh, so I've read the book Rocket Fuel.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, rocket Fuel Rocket Fuel is the same thing, yes, or in there. What I did not know is we had an entrepreneur me, and an integrator my wife. So I would say we were like front of the house, back of the house, those kind of things, yes, we just didn't know that there was such a thing. We just said, oh, you're good at this, I'm good at that, let's go for it.

Andy Silvius:

It's interesting you say that because when I read the book Rocket Fuel, instantly I recognized that that was my relationship with my wife in our business. So I was definitely the visionary you know, wanting to go after all these things, and she was the one who helped keep it all together and keep it cleaned up, very good at operations and stuff, so that was a. It was a difficult book to get through. It wasn't very great at storytelling but, man, I think it was profound in the sense that I realized that I can't do the whole thing. You need to have someone else in your business that can facilitate the growth that you come up with.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, I think that's what helped us, but also, at the end, why we left that business was like, is this really what we want? And we decided to exit, that we were able to sell and not close, which was a big indicator because of the foundational financial work that we did previously, which was great. I didn't know that it would be used to sell the business, but it was good I had it yeah, what did you do prior to owning the coffee shop?

Brandon Neely:

yeah, uh, I used to be in the music industry. I used to be in the military, I was in the marine corps as a, as a young person um, I'd say a young adult, but really probably still kid um and then I was a server for a while. And then what else did I do? Um worked in it, okay, all kinds of stuff.

Andy Silvius:

I've been all over the place but you didn't have necessarily a financial background prior to running the coffee shop. So the coffee shop, from the challenges you face, is what catapulted you into everything else yes, yeah, I did not know anything.

Brandon Neely:

I was just hey, this is a cool thing, um, we could do this. Uh, we had no business background. Um, actually, if we had a degree in business, we probably wouldn't have been able to start our business because we'd have too much student debt. We did have student debt, but it was other things. So we just kind of stepped into it, blindly, naively, I guess you could say.

Andy Silvius:

I would say the majority of people do that Step into a business blindly. I think it's easy to think we need to go to school for a business degree, but I don't. I think you gain more knowledge and experience, just, or knowledge and wisdom, from the experience of running a business, being an actual hands-on operator, and that's. You know, shoot, we've we've lost a ton of money in bad decisions I've made in business over the years and I just have to look at it as like that's my tuition money. Those are the experiences I paid for in real life and they stick with me deeper than if I read a textbook. Hey, everyone, I have a quick interruption from the show, but I'll make it brief. I've got something that I think is vital for every entrepreneur out there and it can be a game changer for your business.

Andy Silvius:

Navigating the business world demands more than just passion. It requires crystal clear financial insight. That's where our company, olive Branch Bookkeeping Inc, comes in, offering not just book cleanups for those behind on taxes, but also comprehensive monthly bookkeeping, payroll management, corporate structuring and the key to informed decisions detailed profit and loss reports. Imagine this your financial records spotless and strategic, paving the way for growth without the headache of entangling years of bookkeeping yourself With Olive Branch, you're equipped with financial clarity to steer your business forward. So if the thought of sorting out your finances feels overwhelming, let Olive Branch Bookkeeping lighten the load. They're more than just bookkeepers they're your financial clarity partners. If you'd like to see how our team can help you and your business, I'll include a booking link and contact information in the show notes so you can schedule a free discovery call.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, and this is the thing I think is really important and is I'm a huge implementer. On profit, first, I think that that's a really amazing tool and really people are okay losing money or in the market. We do a lot in the market and then we take on risks in our business, but we don't know how to to quantify it. We're like, oh, it'll be okay, I'm just gonna make this risk and it'll pay out in five years, uh, but yet we want to pay out from our etfs right away. Yeah, uh, and and we don't know when to, um, what is that? No one to hold them, no one to fold them, kind of idea. We don't know when it is.

Brandon Neely:

And that's why there's three things I tell every business owner, and a lot of times the people won't listen to me because they're like oh yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, well, I kind of have been down that road. Uh, you know I'm I wouldn't say I'm a bazillionaire, uh, yet, but I'm. I have owned and operated and sold a business and another one that's growing with with the team Um, but I tell every, every business owner, uh, these three things is um, know that, you know that, you know that you're called to it, because if you don't know that that and it's just to make money, you will leave, it will not last.

Brandon Neely:

And you have to be able to know because it will test your marriage, it will test everything outside of the business it will test and the business itself. So you need to know that you're called to it and you have to do it. And I think that that's where a lot of people are just looking for the easy button and it's hard, I don't care what business you're in. Then I'd say, have a team around you that care about you, right, not just what you produce, but you, and know your numbers. If you don't know your numbers, there's too many business owners and people who fail. It's not because they didn't have passion, it's because they did not understand how to read a pnl or do the right things.

Andy Silvius:

Uh, yeah, I'm so glad you said that. I mean we uh, we own a bookkeeping my wife's the brains behind that one. But it is amazing to me how many people don't understand how to read a profit and loss. They've never looked at their profit and loss. They make decisions, and this was me for a long time making decisions, thinking I was growing something and really not understanding the financials behind it.

Andy Silvius:

If I was even profitable, it's like just because you have income showing up in your bank account does not mean you're profitable. You know, and a lot of people just don't have a clue where things are at. And I found, as we have consultations with clients around this, some people don't understand. Like when you have multiple areas of service, right, like let's just take a marketing company, for example, and you have you sell websites and you sell content creation and you sell Google ads. You know I've been able to help people look at their PNLs and go, wow, I make 10 times the amount of money in this one area, but I'm spending all my resources and all the others and it's like if you just dropped all of these. Now that you have, you're empowered to make better decisions when you have those financials in front of you.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, and I was telling somebody just the other day I don't know where you stand on the profit first model as a bookkeeper or any of that. There's so many different methods or frameworks and really someone asked well, what's the difference? I'm like it doesn't really matter which way you go, as long as you know your numbers and you can read and figure out how it works. Um, and profit first is great it's. It's a reverse engineering, engineering making sure you're paying yourself, um, but in the end it's really about understanding how to read and not just you know handing it to a bookkeeper and saying, hey, you do it for me, right, paying them, but but actually know how to read.

Andy Silvius:

This stuff is helpful well, what my wife's been doing with a lot of our clients is that she'll go through it depends on the client, right, if they want to do a monthly, monthly review but she'll actually go through and walk them through it so that the more consistent that they get in just reviewing these documents, understanding what they mean, the better educated they are in their in their own business right and and that's really the failure rate.

Brandon Neely:

I think it's like 95 percent of businesses fail in the first five years, or something like crazy.

Andy Silvius:

It's huge. Yeah, I just went through some of the stats on another podcast. It's a very large percentage and I would actually think that the numbers I found were probably outdated, because I feel like people are popping business open, popping up businesses left and right and, you know, not succeeding with them. And uh, one other thing I want to touch on. You had mentioned having you had mentioned something about making sure that you are drawn or called to doing what you do instead of just going after the money, and I have been in that transition period for a little while. I I you know, got into, did very well with it, but it was one of those things where I got into it with the intention of making money and you get burned out when you don't enjoy what you're doing.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, yeah. I was just talking to somebody recently and they were saying with the idea to exit, and if you're starting with the exit right from the beginning, I think that that's gonna be a hard thing. Um, like for me, I did not plan to exit. I was in in my former business. I was going to be there forever. Um, however, you want to build it where you could exit right no one's going to buy your business if you're not even paying yourself.

Brandon Neely:

And that's the problem with a lot of baby boomers and a lot of business acquisition. People are like, oh, yeah, I'm trying to sell this we have and that's my retirement. I'm like, yeah, but did you never actually set up the books right in the first place to pay yourself? Yeah, who in their right mind is going to buy that business?

Andy Silvius:

We have been. I don't mean to keep bringing up my own experiences here, but we have been on the search to buy new bookkeeping firms, people who are wanting to sell. There's quite a few of them, Like you mentioned, the baby boomer generation. There's quite a few up for sale and we have reviewed the books on a couple that we were in negotiations with to purchase. I was shocked having accountants and bookkeepers thinking that they would understand how to set up their books to sell it, and they didn't. And I mean you would think that just automatically they're in that field, that you'd go in and look at a profit and loss and it would be clean, and it wasn't. And they weren't paying themselves very much. Yet they wanted an exorbitant amount of money for the business and it just didn't make sense financially when you look at all the overhead that they have.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, and I think that sometimes and I'm kind of going into this thinking as we've been doing the infinite banking thing a lot and love what we do there, but as I do financial analysis for people, I've learned and I think I'm kind of realizing this more and more that people love the chaos. Yeah, as much as they say they don't want chaos, they want clarity, they love chaos, including myself. Sometimes I'm like maybe I like this.

Andy Silvius:

Do you think you love the chaos or do you think maybe subconsciously you're addicted to the chaos?

Brandon Neely:

I think we are all addicted to the chaos. We have no choice, whereas we're told by capitalism oh, you want to lower your taxes? Buy this widget that'll lower your costs. And you buy real estate to lower your tax liability, and then you have more buckets that you can't figure out. What to do next year?

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, Right, absolutely.

Brandon Neely:

So I don't know, I'm just like, hmm, because we have our book, it goes from moving from chaos to still. Because we have our book, it goes from moving from chaos to still, and I was like maybe it's confusion, haphazard, anxious, overwhelming and stressful. As I do financial analysis all day long, most people are so in chaos they don't even they haven't even figured out what they want.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, yeah, uh, you had mentioned your book. What's name, what's the title of your book and where can people find it?

Brandon Neely:

Because you actually have to work with this, and so Five Smooth Stones. You can find it there. I think there's Kindle. You can buy a Kindle version on Amazon, but you can't find the physical copy on Amazon. So if you want a physical copy, what I like about this is it is a interactive money book. It is a interactive money book, right, and so what we talk about and this is after doing a lot of analysis with people is we're huge people of faith, right, and I mentioned chaos, confusion, haphazard, anxious, overwhelming stressful.

Brandon Neely:

When you're doing bookkeeping, you're like how do I organize this chaos? That's really what you're doing, uh, and tax code is chaos. Business is chaos, right, and we solve problems. What we need to do is move from chaos to still, and still is uh. In the bible it says be still and know. Right, be quiet. We have to actually know what we want, kind of sit with ourselves before we can move. But then then people are told oh yeah, well, you're not busy. Like, no, you have actually the thinking time, right, you have to think right. So still method is set your sights right.

Brandon Neely:

First. You have to set your sights, know where you want to go, track your in and out. That's budgeting or bookkeeping. Inspect your progress, then you have to not just your in and out, that's budgeting or bookkeeping. Inspect your progress, then you have to not just budget inspect it. Look for one percent adjustments this is kind of like the profit first, you know right thing or micro adjustments, uh is what I kind of think about is like what are the little tweaks? And then live deliberately. We don't just do our books just for fun, we do it so we can live deliberate and make smarter moves right, and if we did that on a regular we'd be a lot happier and I don't know, maybe the government would actually work well and all kinds of other things.

Andy Silvius:

Um, I'm not going to go into you know managing our money, uh, whenever they anyway but but you're, you're 100 right and it businesses operate the same way the government does. I mean, just like there's never ending money and right. Then one day it catches up to you and you go shoot, I'm in a bad spot yeah, and that that scares me because we're addicted.

Brandon Neely:

We are addicted like a what do you call it Dialysis machine. We're addicted to, oh, we'll just get an infusion. We're told that by Shark Tank and all that other stuff. And all the while, jamie Dimon is saying, oh, that's great, here you go, you can take it at 10%. And I was thinking about this. On real estate, why do they have higher interest rates when you're a real estate investor? Versus buying it for your own assets, right, for your own house, they charge more money. I was like, yeah, because they'll say, oh, because it's bigger risk. I'm like, no, they're just taking money off the top. Yep, that's really what's happening.

Brandon Neely:

Let's be, honest yeah, but if we don't have our goals and we don't understand how to read that stuff, we'll be taken every day.

Andy Silvius:

Yep. So I want to jump back a little bit to your story with the coffee shop. What were some challenges you faced while operating this coffee shop? Besides staff and, uh, all the regular like marketing, like what I wish I would have done is done more marketing um, now, when you say marketing, I don't mean to interrupt you, but when you say marketing, do you mean paid or organic marketing? Because they do all of it.

Brandon Neely:

I think I think I started in 2011 before instagram. Uh, everybody will tell you like, hey, you need to do this or that. I think really like whatever I could do to get people to get in in the door, um like, but at the same time, you have to look at your customer acquisition costs and all that stuff. So it was good in our partnership. So we had a great partnership for the beginning of the venture, not for the end. That's why we left. But we wish we would have had a drive-through, because people love their convenience, yep, but that location wouldn't allow for it. But we wouldn't have started had we had to raise all the capital on our own. So those are some of the things I wish I would have done differently. I think, also realizing we're all in the real estate game, owning the real estate.

Brandon Neely:

The reason that I had to leave or transition is there was a transition in leadership. Where we're at, we were in a faith-based school building and they had a change in leadership and the principal of that school said, well, I got hired to be a principal, not a landlord. I was like, well, we were here first. Yeah, you know that we're part of it and we were on a year-to-year lease and we're also having a baby. The other thing I think is really important is people underestimate how much liquidity they need, access to capital when things get hard, and so, for us, the reason that I love infinite banking is because I was saving I'm my biggest investment, biggest risk too, so I was putting it into my policy, my life insurance policy, and then, lo and behold, something hit the fan and it really sucked.

Andy Silvius:

Because you're not liquid.

Brandon Neely:

Well, I was liquid, so that's why I was able to overcome it. So, basically, what happened is I had a, the roof was off of the building and it rained right did it get ripped off? Or just no. No, they were doing a, a repair, okay, and a freak storm happened, and it was a big rainstorm.

Brandon Neely:

All of a sudden that we didn't know it's going to happen and uh, so we were not in control. It was the school and I got a call from my staff saying um, yeah, you need to come in the. Um, the store is falling apart, right, and I didn't answer the first call. My wife was on the treadmill. We're trying to do our make sure we're healthy personally as well, so we're running. She calls me. I didn't answer. Then he calls her and I was like, oh shoot, we better answer.

Brandon Neely:

We look, see a video Cause. We were like, oh yeah, it's no big deal, right, send me a video, it's not that big a deal, you're just being dramatic. Then we see it and we're like, oh crap, oh no, and we go into the shop and everything is like a hurricane came through, right. What I did not know at the time is my wife was about four months pregnant maybe three months pregnant, we did not know at the time and so she's wading through the water and all of that. And what saved us is because we had access to able to use our policy. We were able to take that out real quick to run payroll and do some things, because we weren't you know, we were closed for a while.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, and you can't just like your expenses. Don't stop just because you had a disaster of those expenses continue to pile up. You don't want to lose your staff because your goal is to come back in and start running it again. But if you don't, you know you don't have money. I think that's why cash flow like understanding your cash flow in the business and your profit is huge, because majority business owners are operating on, you know, uh, very little cash flow.

Andy Silvius:

There's no profit in the business and they don't understand that you know, one wrong thing and it's going to sink you or put you in a ton of debt that you just don't want to.

Brandon Neely:

You know that puts you in a whole another direction and that that was why infinite banking just made sense for me. Because my, why was I going to invest in the 401k and all that when my biggest risk in business and investment was me? Right? So I needed access to capital and I was able to use that, and I've used it in real estate and other ventures along the way and why it became such an advocate. I just didn't know that Dave Ramsey loves to hate on me.

Brandon Neely:

Oh really I was just like, oh, this is only logical, but apparently the world is not logical. They love chaos.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, you had mentioned too I mean, this is you had mentioned about going in and having this. This all happened to your shop and luckily you had money to be able to come in and cover it. But do you remember what you felt while you were dealing with these challenges, like, how did you you overcome everything? Or were you just super stressed out of your mind and struggling through it?

Brandon Neely:

I was both super stressed and saying what the heck? But I also knew we had. We had built uh and I I have this thing called 10, 10, 10 savings rule, where I save 10% for long-term, medium-term and short. We are okay to overcome. It Still doesn't mean when you have no money coming in all of a sudden you're like oh yeah, this is a little stressful and we're having a baby and the landlord sucks and somebody kept asking me.

Brandon Neely:

Once we got up and running they would ask me what's your number? You know meaning I want to buy your business. I was like, hmm, what's your number? And probably not the best way to do a business valuation or sell of a business. But because we were finding out what was happening, we had our books ready, we had read how to Sell a Business and we were able to sell that, not for a ton, not for seven years of what we put into it, but we were able to sell it. Now what I like about that is fast forward a little bit. They got kicked out. They're still running. They moved to another location, they had an infusion of capital from other places and COVID happened. We would not have made it.

Brandon Neely:

We would not have made it, and so I feel like it was a God thing that happened.

Andy Silvius:

I'm like, oh yeah, all right, and we were able to use that sell to start our next business yeah, because imagine if you had continued in it after investing your capital and then covet hit you would have been. You would have had probably zero reserves, right? Yep, or very little yep. I'm curious, when you sold your business, uh, was there anything that came up during that process that was a surprise to you, or things that it sounds like you had your financials ready, which is a big part of selling a business but was there anything that came up that you just didn't know? What you didn't know?

Brandon Neely:

yeah, I think really, the buyer wanted it and they didn't know what they didn't know. We were educating them how to buy a business. Okay, that was kind of weird. We're like this is how it goes. We read the yellow book that says um, selling your business for dummies, um, you know which. We literally were like how do you sell a business? Uh, let's start reading. And. And we learned and educated them. And then it was interesting as um, what was just hilarious is they were like, oh, um, license, you got to get licensed and you have to have your own license. And they came back to us after the cell and said, um, uh, we don't have a business license. I thought something crazy like that. I was like, uh, we don't, you don't just transfer your license, you have to have your health license and all that stuff yourself. That was kind of uh. Interesting is people think, oh, I just buy a business and it's it's that it just transfers no, I'm like now.

Brandon Neely:

you actually, just because you bought a car doesn't mean that the previous owner's license transfers over. You actually have to make sure you can drive a car. Right, obvious right, you would think, but apparently not.

Andy Silvius:

So I'm curious, curious too, on the business. What were some things you felt you guys did really well while running the business and what were some things you you learned not to do?

Brandon Neely:

yeah, I think that's why I love profit first. Right is because what we are are activists. Um, I even have a bible verse in humility consider others better than yourself. The. The problem in in that is, uh, as I'm and still trying to teach myself on this is if we don't take care of ourselves, we cannot overflow to other people. Right and making sure, and there's there's two extremes. Right, you might have the ones that are hey, I'm paying myself and they're overpaying themselves. Yeah.

Brandon Neely:

Right, and you're like dude, you need to, like, cut it out, like you're killing your business. And then there's the other ones that are like dude, I'm just putting everything into the business. Um, maybe you need to take a date night, and, and, and your kids are going to hate you because you never actually bring in income. Uh, to make it feel like it's worth it. Yeah, right, and, and you probably know in bookkeeping that there's those camps where you need to be, as in that middle place, uh, and, and being able to look at the dashboard and say, okay, there's a problem coming and what do I need to do? And not just, it is a dance. Running a business is a dance. It is, but knowing how to pivot.

Andy Silvius:

And it's a constant evaluation of everything. Like, I mean, and it does get overwhelming. I think that's why people just ignore it and they go. Well, I'm just gonna focus on more sales. But you know, then you start hiring people and don't understand. You know, can you afford to hire somebody, can you afford to give them raises, and um, I think it's important to just have a structure of how you pay yourself, like this is where budgets come in. You know really well, it's like okay, well, I need to pay myself x amount, but I know that I have this much left for taxes, this much left for operating expenses, and then you guys still have a bucket for tax, you know, for emergencies, off to the side.

Brandon Neely:

So yeah, and I think that's the problem is god forbid. You say discipline and you know, but I do think discipline brings freedom. Right, and that's the hard part in business. We want to be able to make my own schedule. It's going to be easy and that's what people say all the time, but I'm like I don't think so.

Andy Silvius:

I saw it all the time in real estate too. People get into the business for freedom and then allow that chase of freedom to completely push them out of the business because they don't they're not disciplined to do the activities that actually make them money and you're doing.

Brandon Neely:

how much was that interest rate? Oh yeah, jp Morgan is making the money, and Uncle Sam. And who's working for who here Anyway?

Andy Silvius:

So, from your experiences, what do you see other business owners doing that's having a negative impact on their personal and business finances? What's something common that you see a lot?

Brandon Neely:

I think what they're not doing is what's more important impact on their personal and business finances. What's something common that you see a lot? I think what they're not doing is what's more important, right, what they are not doing is building and understanding how numbers work. Right, they'll just say, oh, I'm going to give it to Andy and Andy will deal with it. Right, they just offload it, and I think that that's a detriment, right? Um, and so I think that's important. And then they say, well, if I just keep go, go, go, it'll, it'll be fine, um, and so I kind of think about it in that you know, remember that raw, I just released this episode today. Foundational principle of of, of putting the first things first. Again, profit first. They're not organizing uh, time, right? Yeah, um, whether it's eos system, whether it's profit first or or, I don't care, you put a label on it, it doesn't matter, right? But they are not thinking. And they'll say they are, but a lot of times it's like dude, what is it that you want?

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Uh, what is my?

Brandon Neely:

opinion I could be. I could be wrong, though you know, who knows?

Andy Silvius:

no, I don't think so at all. I think it's. It's just good to hear your perspective on it, especially because you've been there, you've run businesses before and and you're helping people and not you know, you're helping analyze people's finances and it gives you a good insight to what people are doing the wrong way.

Brandon Neely:

So what are some ways we can be thoughtful about the social impact of how we use our money? Yeah, I think that the impact is everywhere. Right, we vote with our dollars, right, people say this whole China thing. I'm like, oh yeah, china, this or that. I'm like, dude, we've been voting with our dollars for the past 50 years, right, yeah. And we're saying, oh yeah, well, because we want it free and cheap, right, it's going to cost us, right, same with Amazon and all of that. I'm like, yeah, we, it's going to get us right.

Brandon Neely:

And I think that, what, how we can be thoughtful is not just say what is poverty, but what is enough, like, what does the enough look like to you? And then people will say you're a socialist and all of this, but but I'm like, okay, living within our means, saying this is good, I can still keep growing, yeah, right. But, um, I don't know about you, but this idea of growing, continuing to grow, um, if you look at the economy and you look at a I thought about this recently and in somebody who's overweight, right, or continues to eat, if you keep eating, you will grow, yeah, you will continue to grow. And then they, what do they do? They put you on pharmaceuticals to keep you alive. Right, right, is that healthy to keep growing?

Andy Silvius:

Not in that sense.

Brandon Neely:

No, and so sometimes knowing that in that business sometimes there's times where you need to shrink, whether it's staff or other areas, so you can grow in a healthy way. I think that that's not thought about or talked about, but it's about really thinking what's the priorities really?

Andy Silvius:

thinking what's the priorities. I actually really like that. You said that You're probably the first person on my show that has ever talked about shrinking your business and reevaluating where you're at. Something I've been diving into quite a bit for probably the last year just really focusing on is value propositions, pricing and a lot of times and with the client retention stuff that I'm doing, it's like a lot of times people are so focused on growth they're constantly chasing the next lead, the next incoming sale, but they're not taking care of the other stuff, right, they're not taking care of the current business, and I think there are times when you need to reassess your value proposition, maybe change your pricing that reflects that. Most of the time, I would say raise your pricing if you have a good product or service and just realizing that you build those systems so that you can continue growing in a better way.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, I think that's the making money. People are just saying, oh, you know, and this is what's the TikTok and everything. Oh, they have an eight and nine figure business, or 10, whoever, it doesn't even matter. Yeah.

Andy Silvius:

Most of it is bullshit too.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, most of it, and that's what I'm saying. I'm like I've done a lot of uh financial analysis. You're just lying, yes, and I know it and I can tell you and I, I, you know even some people on uh that are in clients and have those kind of things. I'm like I know what's going on. I actually, I see this and this and you, you were totally. It's a bunch of BS, but it's about making and keeping right.

Andy Silvius:

Yes.

Brandon Neely:

That people don't talk about keeping cause. That's not sexy and that's why it's so hard for me to even grow our business. It's like, yeah, I want to talk to you about saving money. Who no one cares about that?

Andy Silvius:

they, they, they look at the next bitcoin video or whatever it's going to be or they see a guru online that's telling them that saving is bad and that you should just reinvest all of your money. But back to your point earlier.

Andy Silvius:

I guarantee those people still have, if they're successful, and the one in particular I'm thinking of, he's very successful, but I guarantee he has a bucket where he's liquid and he has money in case there's something that goes wrong and it can't just depend on cash flow 24-7, incoming cash flow to pay something else that happens.

Brandon Neely:

Mark Cuban is one of them. I know for sure he has a lot of liquidity. Yeah, um, and people are like, oh, yeah, well, he's an investor, he does that. I'm like, yeah, but he also has some. And I would bet you they probably have life insurance that is properly designed that they can access as a line of credit. I'm like, hmm, that maybe the and. And people will tell me, oh, but that's just for the rich. I'm like, well then, how come I did it right?

Andy Silvius:

um, you just reverse engineer this is a total side note and kind of off on a different tangent, but, uh, on instagram there's a channel called baller busters and I it recently and it is actually taking all these people who are throwing out these ridiculous claims of how they're running eight, nine, you know figure businesses by the time they're 21, whatever, it is right Sitting on their Lambo. But even people who you wouldn't realize are scamming people are and they're calling them out and there's a lawyer. I think that runs the whole thing. But anyways, I just had to mention that because we were talking about the people who were giving out bad advice.

Brandon Neely:

And this is again going back to the infinite banking thing is what I like about this and there's some scammers in that that run some of this but in the essence of what the policy does is it is a contract. As long as you do yours and I use whole life insurance, that's probably designed but as a contract. I could guarantee you that it will, because it's in the contract.

Brandon Neely:

it says guaranteed right when it's gonna be a profitable business venture right as a business model and people don't realize the power of a contract and it's not an investment, it's a savings, but it can be used to amplify your investments real estate business. But you have to actually understand how money flows and be smart. But most of the time we're like, oh, like, oh yeah, but it's not this or that. I'm like, yeah, well, how many people have the sam bank been freed and the bernie madoffs and whoever else I know is a bunch of those guys. I'm like you're totally screwing people oh yeah I can't do it ethically.

Brandon Neely:

I I've thought about it. I'm like you know it would be so much easier just to thought about it. I'm like you know it would be so much easier just to create a great, great uh flash page and do all this and um, I could do it oh yeah but I can't, I can't yeah, because you have integrity. Yes, I can't, I can't, I I would like to, but I mean, like personally, but I would like to make more, yeah, but it's not in my DNA.

Andy Silvius:

Can you give us just a quick, like a basic, overview of what the Profit First model is? Or banking on yourself with these whole life insurance policies? What does that look like? You know, do the insurance companies. They obviously make money from it too, because it's a product that they sell. So can you just kind of give an overview of that?

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, so profit first is a cashflow management system and then banking yourself as another kind of strategy. So first thing I would say is profit first is just a way of enveloping, like Dave Ramsey would say is putting your money in envelopes so you're not overspending, right? So money coming in and you put profit first. That's exactly what it says. But so you have income, then you have profit, then you have owner's pay, then you have OPEX and taxes right.

Brandon Neely:

In those orders, right, or taxes first before OPEXpex, right. But if you've done that, then you're not going to be like, oh yeah, I owe money for taxes and I forgot, like I spent it. Like that's a lot of what happens with business owners is they forgot that they owe money, um, somehow, um, but you're putting them in those buckets to then be deployed. So then you're running a leaner business versus a business that's 110% when you're making 100, right. Then what I like to think about is okay, so I'm making this money. My biggest investment is me. There's key man insurance and all kinds of other tools that I could use, but I'll put it into a life insurance policy that I can access and use, right? So then I'll you put my one of those buckets of savings, I'll just put it through a policy and then I'll leverage that cash value as my line of credit. Right.

Brandon Neely:

So and again can get confusing. But that's why you do a full financial analysis, right? Because then I have this bucket that I can use. And it's almost like a people say this all the time they'll use their house and they'll say I'm going to take a HELOC, yeah Right, and they'll use that, right. And then they'll tell me well, I'm putting money into this policy, it's my money. How come I'm getting charged for it? I'm like how is that any different than a HELOC?

Andy Silvius:

Right, there's still interest on a HELOC, the credit line can sit there without being charged? Yeah, but as soon as you pull money out.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, Same with a life insurance policy. So the only reason I think about it. But it's simple interest that I can borrow against and it's from the insurance company, but what's cool? Is.

Brandon Neely:

I just think, instead of the asset being a house, you're the asset, and then eventually guess what's going to happen you will die right, 100% that is going to happen. And then if you have a loan outstanding, they're just going to subtract that from the death benefit and your heirs get that money tax-free. It's just a way to store your liquidity to be able to do the things you want to do. And then I used my policy to buy my office condo. I did notes, I do notes investing and I did a note with myself. I'm both the business owner and the owner of the policy, and the owner of the property and the business is paying me rent and the owner of the property and the business is paying me rent right. So then, from a tax situation also helps for depreciation because I'm owner, not just a renter right. Just going back to way in the beginning, when I said what was my biggest thing is I wish I would have owned the real estate yeah okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Andy Silvius:

I definitely think, think, and I'm sure you agree, it's a much longer conversation than a short podcast to go through those two concepts. I think we could probably do a whole show just on the profit first model, but especially on the bank on yourself. I've had other people on my show that have discussed it before. We've never done it not on the bank on yourself. We've looked into it and we've just never done it. Not on the bank on yourself. We've looked into it and we've just never done it. But it is an interesting concept, uh, and there are a lot of people who, who swear by it, you know, obviously, including yourself.

Brandon Neely:

That's what got you out of some tight spots I mean, and it's a both and right, if you're gonna like, for me, I'm like it's my savings component that I could have and I'm just kind of doing both. So I love it that it's not an investment, but I can use it for investments, right.

Andy Silvius:

So I've got just a couple more things before we wrap up. I've been asking everyone who comes on the show about AI. It's been all over the place, we're all hearing about it and obviously it's progressing very quickly. What are your thoughts on AI and how do you think it's affected business owners and entrepreneurs currently, and how do you think it will affect them in the future?

Brandon Neely:

I think, if we don't know, think it's going to affect us, we're delusional and I think that it is kind of scary and exciting at the same time, because now what we used to offload to India is now like a robot, right. So from a economic point of view, I'm like this is going to be crazy, right, because, and also from a writing point of view, I know we can use it to our advantage. Like, literally, on our podcast, we uh put in a chapter of our book and said write me a story. And it created a story for us, really quick, um. And so I'm a little bit both worried, because there's a lot of people are gullible, yeah, and they'll read. They'll just say, oh, yeah, that's cool and and they'll believe it and it's not true, right, and so misinformation, I think, is gonna go faster, um, but at the same time, I'm like it's really cool but um, terrifying and and I don't know when, when we're gonna have uh skynet and if that's gonna happen in my lifetime or not.

Andy Silvius:

uh, the trans that's transformers, the uh terminator thing yeah, but I'm a little like we kind of already have that with starlink right yeah.

Brandon Neely:

So I'm, I'm like, yeah, maybe that's gonna happen at some point, um, and we're gonna say, well, it's too late. Like we're going to say well, it's too late, like even this, we know Amazon is too big, but we kept going because we are addicted to it. So I'm a little I don't know where it's going to lead.

Andy Silvius:

But yeah, it's an interesting take. I think there's pros and cons to it and I think there's always good and bad in everything. We do right, if the intentions are good, most of the time it can turn out good, but there's a lot of people with bad intentions. Um, I've explained to some other guests on my podcast. I use it a lot for brainstorming with myself, as weird as that may sound. If I need, it's very difficult if I have a blank sheet to sit there and come up with new concepts or frameworks, and a lot of times I will put in a general idea and I'll it'll spit me back something and I just I can go back and forth instead of trying to sit there and google search and yeah take the long way, the long way through it, um, and then just minor tasks.

Andy Silvius:

You know stuff like that. We're using it for redundant tasks, but I don't know we had I had this conversation with someone else. I don't know that it'll necessarily replace. I think everyone's worried. It's going to completely replace humans altogether.

Brandon Neely:

No, we can't. I mean, we thought about everything else. It's not going to but doing things. If I could use a robot like this is the thing of having a coffee shop If I could have a robot do it and make the same amount of money as a business owner, yeah, that makes more sense, right? But I think we need humans. I think I know right by we, we need each other and I do think that you'll.

Andy Silvius:

I mean, we're seeing more and more of these like this isn't even ai, but just like self-serve kiosks at walmart's and restaurants and all these you know fast food chains. But the more those that pop up, the more you realize that we, we need the human element in our interactions.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, so I I do think that, uh, all of the stats on vulnerability or not vulnerability, suicide, suicide, everything is red, and I think, even though we have social media, we actually need each other. We are lonely, broken. It's that chaos thing.

Andy Silvius:

Disconnected.

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, it's getting worse and I think we need to just again go back to what is enough and and like hey, I'm okay to not be on every social media platform yeah, which is really hard as a business owner, but you know it is, and it's funny you say that because it is, uh, the more connected we feel with internet, it seems like people are more disconnected.

Andy Silvius:

And it's total random, just thought. But it was my wife and I were in a restaurant recently and and, uh, it was a newer restaurant we went into. It was one of those where you walk up to the counter, you order and you can go sit down. I guess kind of like a fast food place, but it's not. It wasn't uh fast food and the serve, the, the cashier and the servers bring the food out, like everybody just was super awkward. It was like they couldn't even make eye contact with you and I mentioned that to my wife. She's like, well, it's because everybody's on their phones these days, like people are just getting more and more like introverted.

Brandon Neely:

When they're in public yet they'll be on camera.

Andy Silvius:

Something is weird it is very strange. It's weird, but I have to have some social behavior expert on here at some point to talk about it. So one last thing before we wrap up if you could leave listeners with one actionable item that would have a positive impact on them today, what would it be and why?

Brandon Neely:

Yeah, I would say know your numbers and know your why, like this is Simon Sinek right? And like, ask yourself what do I want? Yeah, and start going in that direction. But you need to ask yourself what do I want? Yeah, and start going in that direction. But you need to ask yourself and, and it really doesn't require a book to buy. I mean, you can buy my book, but you can also just use a piece of paper and do that with your spouse. Yeah, right, that's what I would say.

Andy Silvius:

Okay, awesome, man. Well, thank you for being on the show today. I appreciate it. I I think everybody will get a lot of value from just hearing your story and and the things that helped get you out of a bind when things didn't go perfect, right so cool.

Brandon Neely:

Thanks for having me, andy absolutely.

Andy Silvius:

I just want to thank everyone else who's listening today. If you enjoyed the show, felt like it provided you value, I'd love to hear from you in the comments, uh, what stuck out most to you from today's episode? We'll see you on. The show felt like it. Provided you value. I'd love to hear from you in the comments what stuck out most to you from today's episode. We'll see you on the next one.