[00:00:06] Viktoriia Miracle: Hello. Hello and welcome to happy time happy money podcast and today we have a Rocky Lalvani. Rocky serves as a shift profitability advisor for business owners. He teaches them how to ensure they get paid and the make profit prior priority. As a certified profit first professional, he implements Michalwicz's profit first system and we will talk about it more in interview. Hi and welcome Rocky.

[00:00:41] Rocky Lalvani: Thank you so much for having me here today, Viktoriia, excited to be with you.

[00:00:45] Viktoriia Miracle: Absolutely excited to have you here with us. And as always, I would love to learn more about you first and how you get started on what you're doing right now?

[00:00:57] Rocky Lalvani: So I had a normal type of life. I had a W2 job and I built my wealth. And then I said, what do I really want to do? And I've always been fascinated by money and growing well and helping people to do. And I was kind of shocked to learn one day that most business owners weren't looking at their financial reports and it was like, wait a minute, how do you run a business?

[00:01:24] And not understand the business of business. And what I found out is that most business owners are not accountants. They don't want to be, they want to do the parts of the business that they love and they ignore the rest. It's just like the rest of us. Right. We do the things we like and we ignore the rest.

[00:01:44] The problem is if you ignore your finances, you're probably going to get in trouble. And so after learning that and reading the profit first book, I decided to partner with Mike because that's just the way I always ran my finances and said, let's go help business owners. Let's help them and entrepreneurial poverty in allow them to get the rewards of the work that they do in their business.

[00:02:12] Viktoriia Miracle: That is sounds amazing and well, so tell us more about what is the profit first? What is this? And, how it helped you?

[00:02:22] Rocky Lalvani: So profit first is basically a system to manage your cashflow. It doesn't require accounting. It leverages the habits that we as business owners have. So most business owners look at their bank account and they say, do I have money?

[00:02:37] Don't I have money? If they don't have money, they freak out and they sell more. If they do have money, they tend to spend it. The problem is we forget the things that we've already spent on, which might be our taxes. It might be profit, right. We're supposed to take profit, but we don't set aside that money for.

[00:02:58] And most business donors pay themselves last, which is not good. You should pay yourself first because you deserve to be paid first. So what profit first does is it essentially sets up bank accounts and it gives every dollar a job. And as soon as the money comes in, you say, Hey, this is my pay because I deserve it.

[00:03:18] This is my profit because there should be a profit in the business. Here's the money for taxes and then if you have a high cost of goods, we might put money aside for cost of goods. And then here's what I truly have to spend on my business and you put that in your operating account. The reason this works so well is because of Parkinson's law and most people haven't heard of Parkinson's law, but what Parkinson's law basically says is we will use up all of the resources allocated.

[00:03:51] So, for example, if you're doing something in your business, generally, let's say you're building a new location. The people will come to you and they'll say, well, what's your budget. And when do you need this done? And if you tell them a hundred thousand dollars in six months, I guarantee you, it will cost a hundred thousand dollars and take six months. If on the other hand you say to them, I only have $10,000 and I need something done in three weeks. You'll find a way to get it done in three weeks for $10,000. And so by constraining ourselves like that, we, we make sure that we use up the time and the money that we have appropriately because businesses will use up all the time and money that you give to them.

[00:04:37] And so when you implement that into your system, it just naturally helps you out and keeps you on point and on message and make sure that you are financially successful and you have the time that you want in life.

[00:04:55] Viktoriia Miracle: I think this is amazing. And I think that a lot of business owners wall say, Hey, like they will plan things out, but then things got off the bat, you know, it's getting longer and things just not always go by plan. So what do you do then?

[00:05:12] Rocky Lalvani: So I, this comes back to the rule that everyone knows the 80 20 rule, right. Which basically says, 20% of what you do produces 80% of the results. And if you take that a step further, 40% of what you do produces 96% of the results. So if you stick to your timelines, if you stick to your budget and say, Hey, we're going to do this in this.

[00:05:37] The plan that we have, and you start to sit down and think, what is the 20 to 40% of what I do. That's producing 80 to 96% of the results and eliminate everything else. So you need thinking time. I think the biggest problem that most business owners have is they're so busy. They don't stop to take a moment to think, and to look for creative solutions and other ways to do things.

[00:06:09] Usually what they do is throw time and money at a problem. So rather than throwing time and money at a problem, let's throw some insights at a problem. Let's think about it and let's find a better way to do. That costs less and takes less time.

[00:06:26] Viktoriia Miracle: Isn't that bull called road less stupid. If taking time,

[00:06:31] Rocky Lalvani: The Road Less Stupid.

[00:06:32] Viktoriia Miracle: It's a great book. Oh my gosh. If you haven't read it like profits first or Road Less Stupid. It's genius. I love it. Every end of the chapter, he's like, go think you'll thank me later. And I'm like, I wouldn't go and think about it. It's a really, really awesome book. I really loved it. Absolutely. So what do you think has been well besides not using the Parkinson law and not paying yourself first?

[00:07:01] What is the biggest mistake business owners make and that their business fall apart?

[00:07:08] Rocky Lalvani: They spend too much like litter there. They it's a couple of things they spent too much, or they don't charge, right. A lot of business owners are afraid to actually charge for the value they deliver. They're like, oh, people won't pay that.

[00:07:24] They will. The number one coaching thing now it depends on the kind of business. If you're in a commodity business. Get out of the commodity business, find a different way to find a supply. That's that doesn't give you the constraints. Otherwise you just raise your prices and you'd be shocked. There are people who will buy from you because you have better higher pricing.

[00:07:48] They want a premium product. They think if it's too low of cost, you're not worth it. And a lot of times we tire our emotions to what we charge people. And so we have to kind of get over that and say, Hey, I am worth more. I can charge more. I do bring value and it's worth it.

[00:08:09] Viktoriia Miracle: Beautiful. Thank you so much in the last question that I have for you today is a question that I ask everybody on this podcast.

[00:08:16] Finish this sentence for me, please. And it sounded like this. If you really knew me, you will know that I am blank.

[00:08:26] Rocky Lalvani: Hi, I'm a numbers guy. I literally, I live to drive the difference between what comes in and what goes out. It's the way I've lived my life ever since I was young. And that's what essentially allowed me to, to build wealth.

[00:08:43] You cannot out earn your way to success. I don't care how much you've got coming in. The top line is vanity. The bottom line is sanity. And at the end of the day in business, Cassius.

[00:08:56] Viktoriia Miracle: Damn. Where were you like three years ago? I needed you then. Okay. Well, I know you have an awesome gift for my audience today. What it is?

[00:09:09] Rocky Lalvani: So we'd like to give away two free chapters of Mike's books, so you can get a chance to look at it, see if it's something that's enjoyable and if you like it, then you can go purchase it. But we'll at least start you off with two free chapters and we'll put a link in the show notes for you to find that.

[00:09:25] Viktoriia Miracle: If you're watching or listening to this episode, no matter, just scroll down and then description, you'll find a link to our episode page. So then you go there and every mentions and contact information of me or Rocky will be there and absolutely send messages with your feedback, with your ideas and shared with your friends.

[00:09:48] Thank you so much Rocky for coming over and sharing your knowledge and I'll see you in the next episode everybody. Bye.