Episode 147: Recession and Inflation: it’s a Celebration!

On today’s episode, Chris interviews Ismael Valdez (Owner/CEO at Nexgen Air Conditioning Heating and Plumbing) , Victor Rancour (Owner at Absolute Airflow and creator behind Profit Rocket), and Tommy Mello (founder of A1 Garage Doors) at the Profit Rocket Summit, live with an audience.

Profit Rocket is a collection of online courses created by Victor Rancour and Michelle Van Beek. Profit Rocket courses help business owners develop effective online marketing strategies to acquire high-quality sales leads at a lower cost, in turning improving their ROI. Courses you can take include but are not limited to: accounting, digital marketing, customer service, sales and more! Profit Rocket also has their own podcast called The Profit Rocket Podcast, hosted by Victor Rancour himself.

Charge More, Pay More, Make More

The men on stage at the Profit Rocket Summit didn’t get where they are today by handing over their business to others and sitting back waiting for success. Networking, loyal partnerships, education, and a hands on approach is what keeps businesses going and thriving, even during a recession or times of inflation.

Chris Yano

“We’re living in a time of recession and inflation, but this can actually be a good thing…”

Chris opens the podcast by talking about how we’re living in a time of recession and inflation but that this can actually be a good thing. If you wanna be able to pay your employees more and make more, you’ve got to know your numbers. Chris credits Anna Yano (COO of RYNO) for being their CFO early on in the beginning stages of RYNO and wearing a lot of hats to manage their money.

You have leverage whether you’re a big or small company. When you go into conversations with manufacturers, you need to have a plan in place. You can’t wing it.

Ismael Valdez

“The one mistake everyone makes is that small company owners don’t have a financial expert to handle their earnings and have no idea what their gross profits are and how to manage their money…”

According to Ismael Valdez, you can actually make money in a recession and even with inflation. He says it’s super simple: the fear of charging more, is what’s keeping you from paying more, which is keeping you from making more. It’s a domino effect. He claims the best advice he’s gotten recently was this:

Whatever you feel comfortable charging, add $5,000.

In other words, if you stay in your comfort zone, you’ll never make any money. If you charge more, you can pay more. The one mistake everyone makes is that small company owners don’t have a financial expert to handle their earnings and have no idea what their gross profits are and how to manage their money.

On the topic of partnering with manufacturers, he says that to get 24% rebate on the products he buys for his business – he set goals and had these companies he worked with set scales for him and he made it a priority to sit down with these companies to set sales goals for the year to discuss what they could do for each other and how they could these exceed goals.

When posed the question, “What do you do during the slow season as business owner in the trades?” Ismael addressed the audience by stating that as a business owner, you need not worry. If you’re slowing down, then everyone is slowing down. It’s not the fault of your digital marketer, it’s the nature of business.

Tommy Mello

“You gotta go with what’s going to make you the most money…”

Tommy Mello says most of his technicians make 6 figures in their first year because he believes in paying top dollar for quality work and quality people and most of his technicians are hired based on referrals.

Most business owners don’t know how to price their products and services. A fractional CFO looks for the services and potential expenses to add on to their bottom line. After hiring a professional that was paid well and invested in the company, Tommy added 6 million plus to his bottom line. He increased profits by focusing on selling their most profitable garage doors and inciting a competition between his technicians to push incentive.

“You gotta go with what’s going to make you the most money.” Don’t hold yourself to one brand to work with, shop around, negotiate. Make sure your company and your partners take care of each other.

On the topic of working with manufacturers, Tommy says that when you’re starting out, you need to undershoot what you think you’ll sell to the manufacturers and show that you can crush it and do more. You’ll make extra bonuses for going above and beyond what you had them think was your limit.

Victor Rancour

“You need to know your numbers…”

Victor Rancour states that he takes care of his people, and the way to do that is to charge more.

Victor says says one of the big mistakes business owners make starting out is that they hire someone to take care of their finances but don’t know anything about how it works themselves. He recommends educating yourself on what goes into managing money in a business. You need to “know your numbers” and to “stop pawning sh*t onto other people.” When the business grows and you’ve got the extra expense to include a professional, that’s when you get someone involved – not the at beginning when you have hardly anything.

At Profit Rocket – they give their clients the power to understand their financials so that they’re not at the mercy of an accountant.

Victor adds that during the slow season, “If you see your competitors going to trade shows, shaking hands, and networking, you should be doing the same thing.” Even if your business is making less sales during this portion of the year, it’s important to keep your brand alive. He says that we’ve gotten so lazy depending on digital marketing to get us leads that we’ve stopped going out and putting a face to the name for our companies.

To learn more about how you can profit and thrive as a business owner during a recession from the successful minds of RYNO, Nexgen, Absolute Airflow, and A1 Garage Doors -listen or watch the full episode above.

Join the Party With us!

If you’re interested in reaching out to Ismael, Victor, or Tommy, you can follow them on LinkedIn respectively. Be sure to follow The Profit Rocket Podcast and check out the Profit Rocket site for digital marketing and business courses created by two masterminds of the industry.

Join us every Tuesday for new episodes of the To the Point Podcast, hosted by Chris Yano.