Client Conversation Coach

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dan DeLong (00:33):
Welcome everybody to another QB Power Hour.
I still need to update thatvideo.
Sorry, man.
What are you

Matthew Fulton (00:41):
talking about?
I'm Michelle today.
It's okay.

Dan DeLong (00:44):
I do have you on the slide.
Yes.
You are officially on, on theslide.
Uh, well, welcome everyone toanother, uh, QB Power Hour.
We'll be talking about theclient conversation coach with
our guest.
Cashflow, Mike.
Um, I always mispronounce yourlast name and I can't get it
into my head how to say it.

(01:05):
'cause I, I know I wanna sayMilan like the city, and I know
that's not the right way to sayit, so please correct me.

Mike Milan (01:13):
I I will.
And, and I'll teach you a wayto, uh, uh, oh.
In my phone, my, oh, there itis.
Uh, you're, anyway.
I'll teach you how to, and mostpeople already know this
already, but, uh, there's a songthat actually helps you
pronounce my name.
Uh, and it's kind of like this.
It's a cash, money, money,money,

cash, money, money, cash.
No,

Mike Milan (01:33):
no, that was close.
So that was really close.
It was, uh, this land is yourland.
This land is my land.
There

Dan DeLong (01:42):
you

Mike Milan (01:42):
go.

Dan DeLong (01:42):
See,

Mike Milan (01:42):
see, it's easy.
But I'll tell you what, the coolthing about a name like that is.
I always know if you don't knowme, right?
So it's easy to hang up ontelemarketers.

Audio Only - All Particip (01:53):
Yeah.

Dan DeLong (01:54):
Yeah.
Yes.
When they say Dan DeLone, now,click.
Yeah.
There you go.
There you go.
All right.
So let's get into, uh, get intoour topic today.
My name is Dan DeLong, uh, ownerof the Danwidth and School of
Bookkeeping.
Worked that into it nearly 18years.
Doing the co hosting duties heretoday as well as the workshop

(02:16):
Wednesday.
Turn it over to Matt.

Hello everybody, Matthew Fulton here, goes by
Spot.
I am founder of Parkway BusinessSolutions and the Facebook group
QB Community Live and a bigworkflow nerd.
I actually, one cool littlething I just did, had a client
that had all these unbillabletime things, 34, 000 items and
was able to go in and remove allof them for him.
So I love doing weird stuff likethat.

Dan DeLong (02:41):
Wow.
I'm impressed and Mike, my landlive from San Antonio.
It's

Mike Milan (02:52):
cashflow.
Mike, right?
Uh, Hey, I'm, I'm happy to dothis.
We we've done this several timesover the last decade or so.
Uh, so I'm happy to be back.
Uh, I am a.
Consultant, author, trainer, uh,built a program called the clear
path to cash, wrote three books.
We're going to go over thenewest book today.
And some of the, the concepts Ilearned is both the state
trooper, uh, and from watchinghoarders.

(03:14):
So we're going to do that.
You're going to see how thosetwo mesh.

Dan DeLong (03:18):
All right.
I'm intrigued.
So a little bit about the, uh,QB power hour, uh, every other
Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern,which now I am finally on the
Eastern time zone.
So I can finally be on the, onthe, on the same time as the,
as, as the advertised time, uh,it is eligible for CPE credit,

(03:41):
but not on the live webinar.
Um, we are partnered and workingwith, uh, earmark and they
create the, um, CPE courses forus.
And typically about a week afterthe live event.
So next week when we don't havea peak to be power hour, you
can.
Review that by going into thethe channel on earmark and they

(04:03):
should be there We do have thethe last three that we've done.
Um, they should actually beposting one this week Uh for the
one that we did last time uh onum for the power hour there, but
you can always access the thepower hour channel and just as
they're Post it in there.

(04:24):
You can just take, get your, getyour CPE credit that way.
A few things about thehousekeeping, uh, if you have
specific questions about Mike,uh, what Mike is going to be
covering here with us today, um,Please put them in the Q& A
because it makes it a lot easierto follow up and make sure it's
addressed.
General comments, things thatyou want to just chat about,

(04:47):
please put them in the chat.
And then, of course, we have thelinks for the handouts, which I
forgot to put in the landingpage there so that you can
access those, but I'll do thosein just a moment.
We also have a store with someswag if you want to check it out
for all your QB power hour swagneeds But what's on the agenda

(05:11):
today is we'll be talking aboutclient conversations and we'll
we'll be Kind of unpacking themwith mike about you know,
looking back at howconversations with your clients
used to happen and, and how theycan happen now.
And he has a new strategy thathe wants to, uh, tell us about

(05:32):
all tell, which, um, is anacronym, uh, terminate every
long lecture.
And we'll unpack that as well aselevation, the elevation
sequence and way that he has,uh, structured a way to have
client conversations.
Cause that's, that's kind of oneof the things that.
I think we've been kind ofunraveling or unpacking, uh,

(05:56):
from this, you know, transitionfrom, uh, the word I was looking
for is, um, not coming to me.
It's from compliance work, uh,bookkeeping categorization, you
know, that, that sort of thinginto advisory.
And I think a lot of people justhave, uh, sometimes they

(06:20):
struggle with having thatconversation.
In, in how to have thatconversation, uh, Mike, would
you, would you say that's a, afair statement, uh, uh, an
assumption from, from whatyou've been seeing in your.
Um, you were neck of the woods.

Mike Milan (06:37):
Yeah.
I, I never started out to wrote,uh, write a third book.
Uh, nobody really ever expectsto learn how to talk to somebody
from state trooper, right?
And it wasn't one of thosethings that kind of came across
my radar, but what I wasnoticing while I was teaching
the math, probably everybody onthe call goes, Oh, that's the
math guy.
That he's the guy that doesthis, that, and the other with,
with, with numbers.

(06:58):
What I noticed is that there wasa breakdown between, uh, getting
to the right answer, finding theproblem, getting to the right
answer, and then getting someoneto take action, right?
So this is about not gettingcompliance, not compliance the
way you just said it, Dan, but Idon't want clients to be
compliant because I ask them todo something or tell them to do
something.
I want them to be committed,right?

(07:19):
So this is about a conversationtechnique that gets people to be
committed to take action versusjust being compliant because
they're required to.

Dan DeLong (07:29):
Matthew, any thoughts about that kind of
having that, that, thatconversation with, with clients?

You know, it feels like no matter how long
I've been doing this, this isalways one of the biggest
challenges is trying to masterthis.
And it's why I always love tolisten to Mike and, and gain
some extra knowledge and thereminders of things that he's
helped teach me before, butmaybe didn't stick well enough
the first time so I can keepevolving.
So, um, I'm here to be a studentjust as much as everybody else.

Dan DeLong (07:59):
All right.
Well, let's, um, let's go aheadand start our first poll
question, and that is, do youstruggle with client advisory
conversations?
Yes, no, or maybe it's just notin your, your scope of work, the
things that you do today, butmaybe you want to learn having,
having those, thoseconversations.

(08:20):
And while that is going on, um,looking for, um,

You know, Dan, I guess the one thing I'd add on
is I think the term we'vealready said like the term
client advisory can be veryominous at times and not under
it's not easy to understand itthere for the beginning.
I always thought that was justsupposed to be part of our
services when you're talkingabout.
Um, the value add things helpingthem understand their workers
comp or their merchantprocessing and understanding Um

(08:50):
where their money's going to buttruly the cash flow side of it
the forecasting That's a wholedifferent level that um, there's
definitely a right way to goabout it.

Dan DeLong (09:03):
Yeah Yeah, there's definitely um, you know, because
you you'll get the most I mean,it's kind of like parenting,
right?
I mean Yeah, you know saying theright thing to to to get Um,
this child or the client to takeaction is, is part of the, is,

(09:23):
is, is the toughest part of thewhole thing is, is getting,
getting on their level.
So let me go ahead and I'll stopsharing, uh, Mike, you have
your, your slides ready to go.
I

Mike Milan (09:35):
am ready.

Dan DeLong (09:36):
All right.
And we'll, we'll dive right intoit.

Mike Milan (09:41):
All right.
Cool.
There we go.
Are we good?
We see it.
Yep.
Yes, sir.
All right.
So here we go.
Right.
Live from San Antonio.
And I got to tell you, this isbrand new stuff.
So if I stumble, if I fumble, ifI flip over, whatever that's
going to be, who knows, whoknows how this is going to hang
out.
Right.
So, uh, again, like I toldfolks, I didn't intend.

(10:06):
To write a book on conversation.
I just didn't write my firstbook was don't be a dumb
business owner.
And that was about don'tunderstand my business, right?
Acronyms.
That's kind of how I learnedthings myself.
And this is all about the clearpath to cash aid techniques to
maximizing cash in a business.
So this reads more like a mathtextbook.
Then with that, I added in theseven minute conversation.

(10:27):
You can get a copy of this forfree, but this is how to analyze
financial statements in sevenminutes or less.
When I was teaching folks how todo the math in the clear path to
cash, we would role play becausepeople would want to know, well,
how can I find an issue or howcan I, uh, how do I actually
work with the solution, right?
Once I find an issue, how do Isolve it?

(10:48):
And we would role play itbecause that was part of.
The education is how do I havethis conversation?
So once we got to the pointwhere we were doing more and
more role plays as a cohort, asa group together, uh, more, more
and more people were saying,Mike, how do you do that?
And I'm like going, and I wouldshow them the math and they go,
no, what you just did, what youjust said.

(11:08):
And I'm like, oh, You mean talkto people?
I said, I said, I don't know.
I don't know how I talk topeople.
And I really put some thoughtinto it because I'm like going,
that was where people strugglednext.
Most CPAs, most bookkeepers,most accountants, they could
figure out how to do the math,right?
I mean, there's not a lot ofsecrets in math to this group,
but it was how to impart it tothe non sophisticated financial.

(11:32):
business owner, which is how doI get you to not only understand
what we're saying, but want totake action, right?
Want to be committed to puttingmore cash in your pocket.
So I said, okay, let me dissectall the conversations I've had
over the last 25 years.
And I really went back to myfirst lesson in talking to
people.
And that was at the highwaypatrol Academy in Jefferson

(11:54):
city, Missouri.
And the lesson they gave us wascalled verbal Judo.
So when I say that, I alwaysthink Karate Kid, like, wax on,
wax off.
That's the way I always thinkabout it, like Karate Kid.
But verbal judo was more aboutlearning to talk to everyone at
their worst moment and gettingthem to understand what was to

(12:14):
happen next, right?
Without the fight.
I would much rather, believe itor not, after, you know, seven
years as a state trooper, Iwould rather Talk to you for 30
minutes on the side of the road,then fight you for three,
believe it or not, that's thebetter choice is the talking
always works out.
So that's where this started wasjust learning how to talk to
people, uh, in their worstmoments.

(12:36):
And a lot of times that's howbusiness owners feels.
They feel judged.
They feel accused.
They feel bad ashamed because ofthe way they've run their
business.
So because of that kind ofevolved into running my own
business.
And I remember one of the thingsthat I told my father in law
right, right in the verybeginning.
He says, Hey, what's some of thethings that annoy you?
And I said, I don't like to betold what to do.

(13:00):
And maybe you're the same way,Matt, maybe the same way, Dan,
you're the same way.
So that became.
The basis for this book is don'ttell me what to do, but trying
to connect it to the math.
I used it as an acronym and telldoesn't mean tell it means
terminate every long lecture.
Because when I started hiringconsultants, they would come
into my place of business.

(13:22):
And they would just ask mequestions and then they would
just present and I would bepresented with walls and numbers
and intro to thick binders andthat type of stuff.
I'm like, oh man, I just gotbored really fast.
There was no engagement.
They weren't including me in theconversation or the work.
And because of that, the tellbecame terminate every long
lecture.
Your job isn't to come into myplace of business and give me a

(13:44):
lecture about how to run mybusiness.
It's to work side by side withme to find the solution and
actually implement it.
Does that make sense?

Dan DeLong (13:51):
Yeah.
Go ahead, Matt.

It totally does.
Matter of fact, you know, I wantto call myself out and in the,
the comments, if you've beenguilty of this in the past, put
a one in the comments realquick, just to kind of say you
have, I know for sure I havewhere you, you go into solution
motor answer mode, right?
And you're forgetting toactually engage instead of just
try to talk.

(14:14):
So that just hit home for me atleast.

Dan DeLong (14:17):
Yeah,

Mike Milan (14:18):
right on.

Dan DeLong (14:18):
Right on.
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, I mean, I think it's a, um,it's, it's, it's, there, there's
something that, you know, wewant to prove our, our worth,
right?
And, and the way that we do thatis by throwing up whatever it
is, you know, it's a verbaldiarrhea of, uh, here, here's

(14:40):
why you need to do this, thissort of thing, but it's not, you
know, we have two ears, onemouth for a reason, and we
should listen twice as much aswe talk, but we end up.
Talking more first as opposedto, you know, listening and
getting on their level.

Mike Milan (15:01):
Exactly.
Right.
Exactly.
Right.
So once I realized that that wasthe next.
roadblock or obstacle inadvisory services.
I'm like, okay, well I've got tohelp people understand the way
this conversation should flow,at least in my mind, because I
feel like they were gettingstuck by the solution and
wanting to get right to it whenthe client wasn't ready.

(15:22):
Right.
So I built this course calledthe client conversation coach
that's inside my community.
So the first thing I had to dowas say, if I wanted to see
different things, I have tochange the way I look at it.
So if you look at the way I lookat financial statements compared
to what they teach you in class,that's one of the reasons why my
techniques stand out is that Itake a different approach to
each one of the financialstatements.

(15:44):
So I took that same approach andput it into this course, which
has changed the way you look atthings and you'll.
And the things that you see willalso change, right?
So that's kind of the premisefor everything.
Here's the way I process ishappening, right?
When I look at people teachingadvisory services, they go do
step one, step two, step three,step four, step five.

(16:05):
And it was just, you do thesethings kind of in this order.
And then eventually you get tothe next step or everyone gets
to the end.
This is where it always fellapart for me.
Every time I tried to do a stepby step process, it would fall
apart because the step would be.
Let's do forecasting.
But my client would walk in andsay, I don't know if I'm going

(16:26):
to make payroll next week.
Right.
So I can't talk aboutforecasting on next year if we
have an immediate problem ofsolving payroll this week.
So what I noticed is that everyclient I talked to was in a
different state, a differentposition, a different problem,
all at the same time.
So I had to come up with somemethodology to be able to meet
them where they're at.

(16:48):
So here's what I was thinking.
Is that I need to stop startingwith the problems that I saw.
And started to fix the problemsthat they felt right so that was
the biggest change I made in theway I was talking to people is
that I would walk in seefinancial statements and you
know me, Matt.
I mean, I'll go throughfinancial statements and find

(17:09):
problems dot dot dot dot dot dotthis this this this this this
this and we can.
Start on our way to fixing theproblems.
But the thing was is if theydidn't feel it, they weren't
interested in what I saw.
They were interested in whatthey felt.
So that was one of the things Ihad to get to really fast was
what's, what do you feel aboutthat?
Yeah.
Right.
A little bit different.

(17:30):
It's, it's.
It's kind of all the same, butit's a little different, which
means you have to be a littlebit more flexible in the way
that you communicate with folks.
Just like we do on the podcast.
I don't know what you're goingto say next.
It's a conversation cone withtwo people, right?
Versating, you know, talkingtogether.
So everyone kind of starts in myworld with this compass and the
compass is kind of, we're goingto.

(17:51):
Look at what your guiding staris.
If we're going to work togetherfor five minutes, five days,
five years, 15 years, I need toknow where we're going because
the advice I give you could bedifferent than the advice I give
the person next door.
So I always start with kind ofthe compass, which kind of sets
the ground rules.
But then every other techniqueI'm going to talk about below
this and I do them in order islooking for an issue.

(18:14):
And what I learned is that.
Most business issues can be putinto six buckets, right?
Is an education problem, aprofit problem, a cashflow
problem, a debt operations ofthe future.
If I can put you into one ofthose six buckets, I can go
quickly to a technique to solveit and get you on the path to
recovery really fast.
Does that make sense?
So that's what I'm doing throughthe conversation.

(18:36):
I'm looking for the issue thatfits into one of these buckets.
And then what I do is I teachyou what to do.
Once you get them inside abucket, right?
And then everybody ends at theirown transferable value.
And transferable value to me is,do I have enough money to do
whatever it is I want to donext?
I'm transferring value and worthfrom the business to me, right?

(18:57):
Either by selling the businessor by, uh, monthly putting away
money for me from this business.
So there's the two things,transferable value, transferring
it from the business to me.
So, so what is this?
It's just a framework.
Of guiding you through aninteraction through a
conversation.
That's all it is.
It's not, it's not a script.
It's a framework.
Even though I'll give you samplequestions, it's gotta be you,

(19:19):
you know, because if you use mywords all the times, you're
going to sound just like ahillbilly like me.
You

Dan DeLong (19:26):
know

Mike Milan (19:27):
what's funny is in the very beginning of this, I
wrote this book three times.
The first time I wrote it and Iwrote it just the way I say it
and I go, Ooh, that sounds waytoo hillbilly.
The second time I wrote it, Iwrote it like I teach at the
university.
It sounded more like aprofessor.
So the third version is what Icall the Hillfessor version.

(19:47):
The hillbilly professor.
It's a combination of bothacademic and, and, and casual.
All right.
So what's the point, right?
First of all, the problem that Isaw was nobody likes to be told
what to do.
And here's how I kind of provedit to myself.
I was sitting doing this live,right?
Just doing one of these seminarslive.
And I asked somebody said, Hey,listen, I brought them up to the

(20:10):
front of the room and the roomis set up in a U shaped
configuration.
Right.
And the doors in the back.
I was the last speaker of theday for this group.
And I said, Hey, listen, if weend right, if when we end.
We probably all want to go downto the bar, right?
We were in a hotel.
We are probably want to go downto the bar.
What are some ways we couldleave this spot and get out of

(20:32):
this room?
Well, he thought about it.
He goes, we could go to the leftof this.
You would go to the right of theU and go over the tables under
the tables.
He just came up with a bunch ofdifferent scenarios.
And I said, okay.
Let's try it.
And he chose to go to the rightand all I did was walk beside
him and we walked around theright and went, went to the
door.
Right.
What that was proving is that wecame up with a solution to the

(20:55):
problem.
The problem is we got to leavethis room.
He came up with severalsolutions.
I just guided him along thatpath.
Then I brought him back up tothe front of the room again.
And I said, okay, now put yourhands up like this.
Right.
And he put his hands up in frontof him just like that.
I put mine into fists and placethem against his hands and I
lean forward.
What do you think he did when Ileaned forward?

(21:17):
I'm 240 pounds.
He did.
He braced, right?
He instantly resisted.
I didn't tell him to resist.
I didn't tell him to doanything.
I just put some body weightagainst him.
And naturally his first instinctis to resist, to brace himself,
to push back.
That was the lesson I was tryingto push is that every time we

(21:39):
talk to somebody and we tellthem what to do And it's not
their idea Their naturalinstinct is to push back So the
whole goal is to get people tobe committed to taking an action
not compliant with what I justsaid

We've got, uh, Peter Cohen that's watching on
YouTube, who's, uh, joins usquite often.
He was basically saying, youknow, meet them where they're
at.
This is the primary objectivethrough all this.
Yeah.
Nails it.
Right.

Mike Milan (22:05):
Yeah.
Good one.
Good one.
Right.
So, uh, this is just socialproof that I actually did wear
this uniform at one point intime.
Uh.
22 years old, right?
I don't recognize you without abeard, though.
Matter of fact, uh, I'm introuble if I ever shave the
beard.
I shaved it down just closer,and everybody in my family goes,
No.

(22:27):
Don't do that.
And I don't know why.
I think it's because I have amore rounded moon face now than
I used to.
Probably what happens.
The whole part of this verbaljudo, though, was, again,
Meeting them where they're at,you know, uh, but I learned not
to say these things.
That was part of it.
Like going, because I said, soyou always, you never, I don't

(22:48):
have time for that.
It's not my job.
You wouldn't understand.
Calm down.
Anytime people say that, Matt,you want to talk about it?

Well, I, I, ironically, just last night I
was talking to a good friend ofmine, Linda, and I pulled up
this.
Uh, list of things not to kindof say and a majority of um,
like there was a list of 12 anda lot of them are right there.
Things not to say.
I'm like, talk about somethingslapping you in the face, like
over and over day after day.
It's, it's interesting.
So it's hitting home.
Smart stuff.

Mike Milan (23:15):
Yeah.
Cause it's all.
Uh, ways for them to argue,right?
And the whole point of what I'mgoing to teach in this technique
is to get them to acknowledge,to say it, to verbalize it,
because if they say it, there'sno one to argue with.
If you say it, you can arguewith me.
So the way I'm going to talkthrough the questioning is the

(23:37):
same way I did as a trooper.
If you say it, that's why theyask you, you know, well, how do
you think it got like this?
Where do you think that camefrom?
If you say it.
Then of course it's true.
If I say it, it might not betrue to you.
So instead here were four magicphrases that I learned, right?
And that kind of all starts offand you might've heard me this

(23:58):
and just casual conversation.
Oh man, that's super interestingor that's interesting.
And I'll follow it up with.
Blah.
Hey, why would you say it thatway?
Or, what do you think?
Or, you know, why would you doit that way?
Or, when you ask these type ofquestions, it gets them to start
to rethink what their action is,or what they could be, or what
the reasons or the rationale is.
Now, I started off this wholething by saying, this whole

(24:22):
Concept this whole technique wasa combination of what I learned
as a state trooper and fromwatching hoarders.
If you were like me in 2020, youspent a lot of time inside and
you spent a lot of time in frontof the TV.
And Courtney got me to sit downin front of the TV and watch an
episode of hoarders.
And I'm telling you, I don'twatch hoarders.
For the disorder, because it'ssad, it really is.

(24:45):
I watch it for the interactionbetween the psychologist and the
person with the disorder.
That conversation is magic.
And you'll see it, if you'veever seen one of these episodes,
they're formulaic, right?
Which means they kind of allplay out the same way.
But the first scene is alwaysthe doctor going up to the front
door.
And as they're walking up, youcan see the problem.

(25:05):
I always liken that to me.
As soon as you hand me financialstatements, I can see the
problem.
And then, but that firstinteraction is the one that's
the most dangerous.
And the danger I mean is yourclient could shut down
immediately based on what yousay first.
Right?
So the whole thing is not to beconfrontational, not to be
accusatory, not to be judgmentalright off the bat.
Right.

(25:26):
But if you see that first sceneplay out, you go, Oh, I need to
watch that because that's howthey get them to move towards
the committed behavior, which isthe action to clean up the
place.
So, and at the end of today,I'll show you a video of how
that works out in hoarders.
Okay.
So the principles, right?
Terminate every long lecture.

(25:46):
I want you to start with the endin mind.
If we're going to be workingtogether, why are we doing this?
Be the guide, not the judge.
Right?
You're not accusing them.
You're not judging them.
You're guiding them to the next,uh, way of improvement.
Clearing the noise is somethingI preach all the time.
Everybody that comes to thismeeting, including people that
are on this call today, youalready have something in your

(26:08):
head.
I think he's going to talk aboutthis.
I wonder if he's going to hit onthat.
You know, you got all thesethings that you think about
before you go into a meeting.
You have to let people clear thenoise or they can't be engaged
with you during theconversation.
And then turn talk intotraction, which is actually
doing it.
Right?
Actually getting them to takeaction.
So, questions or anything?
Cause you know me guys, youknow, I will go right through, I

(26:29):
mean, I'll go two, three, fourhours.

Um, let's go back one real quick.
I do have a quick question.
Uh, cause I know you've alwaysgot logic with your steps there.
Start with the end in mind.
Can you talk about that a littlebit deeper because when I first
hear it, my thought is well,wait a second, if we're already
starting with the end in mind,are we listening to what they're
needing if we're assuming whatthe end is?
How do you, what do you mean bythat?

Mike Milan (26:53):
Here's what I mean.
I use the compass technique,right?
And I'll start off just likethis, man.
I'll go, Hey, listen, Matt,usually when I'm in these
consulting relationships, theylast quite a while, right?
Months, years, even if that'sthe case with you and I, I need
to know kind of where you'regoing.
So when you leave this business,what do you want to do next?

There you go.
Okay.
So understanding what their endis, not your idea of what their
end is.
Yeah.
Cause just,

Mike Milan (27:20):
just with you too.
I mean, Dan might want to justtravel the U S like he does
just, Hey, I just want to travelthe U S and, and do my thing.
And you might want to buy a lakehouse and sit on the deck and
drink coffee in the morning andsit on the deck and drink wine
at night.
Well, those two dreams costdifferent amounts, right?
So that's where I'm saying,start with the end in mind,

(27:41):
because I can't guide you tojust having a lot of money.
Money is just a tool to fundwhatever dream that you want,
right?
I tell accountants, businessowners, bankers all the time, I
said, what business do you thinkyou're really in?
Dan, what business do you thinkyou're in?
If you're an accountant?

Dan DeLong (27:56):
Well, whatever I'm going to say is the wrong
answer, so it's

the people business.

Dan DeLong (28:01):
Yeah,

Mike Milan (28:03):
you are in the dream fulfillment business and you
have to put yourself in thatmind frame.
Is that the reason why peoplecome to you is that they want to
keep more money.
They want to keep it in theirpocket because they need more
money as the tool to fundwhatever it is they want to do
next.
Your job is to help them dothat.
If you put your mindset there,then it becomes easier to have
the conversation.
I'm only here to help youfulfill that dream.

(28:26):
That's something new that Ididn't know.
I was this fluffy.
I thought it was the math guy.

You're looking pretty trim, my friend, pretty
trim actually,

Mike Milan (28:35):
but I appreciate that.
Appreciate that.
So basically the way I teach thewhole thing is it's, it's the
financial doctor, right?
It's analyzed, diagnosed, andtreat.
I know it's five steps here, butthat's really what we're doing.
We're analyzing data.
When you go to the doctor'soffice, they gather all this
data, how much you weigh, whatyour blood pressure, all this
type of stuff, they analyze allof that, diagnose what's going

(28:57):
on with you.
And treat it.
You should look at the advisoryrelationship the same way,
right?
Except for don't make them spend45 minutes in the waiting room,
reading five year old magazines.
You know, maybe you shouldn't dothat, but, but anyway, that's,
that's what we're doing.
So all of up here, up here,it's, it's kind of in an order
and a flow chart, but I want togo through what the techniques

(29:19):
are.
Because I'll start with one.
If I don't find an issue, I goto the next one.
If I don't find an issue, I goto the next one, next one, and
so forth.
And what I'm trying to do is putyou in a bucket.
Because if I can put you in abucket, there is a clear path to
cash technique I can use tosolve the problem.
So that's kind of where we'regetting to with this.
Here's what it kind of lookslike a little bit more blown up.
This is just the, you know, theanalyze part, right?

(29:41):
We start off with the compass.
I use the next technique isclear the noise.
Now I know you don't know whatthese are, but I'm just kind of
showing you how it lays out.
If I don't find an issue, I usethe Explorer.
Then I use the crowbar and thenI use the mirror moment.
And if I can't help you, I justrefer you to somebody else,
right?
Or if I can't help you, I'll goand get to the point, you know,

(30:02):
I'll say, Hey, let me trysomething with you.
If I can't get them to say it,cause all of this is about
getting them to say what theproblem is.
If you can get the person to saythat they have too much
inventory, that they'recollecting too slow, that their
pricing's bad.
If you can get them to say it,they're more willing to fix.

That, okay, that one, what you just said there is
super powerful just to make sureit hits home for everybody.
Right?
Because there are these, wealready know there's different
levers in a business you canpull to improve your cashflow.
But if you can't get thebusiness owner to recognize it
themselves, then it's not goingto change.
If they don't, you can tell themthey have too much inventory or
their turnover rates too slow,or they're paying too much.

(30:41):
If they can't see that and cometo that, they're not going to be
looking for ways to improve it.
Right?

Mike Milan (30:47):
Yeah.
So, and that's just, again,that's from history of me
working with clients.
Now is that I have been more,uh, productive, more effective
when I can get them to see thisproblem the same way.
Cause then they go, yeah, it isa problem.
Then go fix it.
Every time I've told them whatto do, they give me excuses of

(31:07):
why they can't get it done.
Yeah.
Right.
So this is, this is thetransition from good to great.
Good is I can find the problemsand tell you what the solution.
Great is I can get you toacknowledge it and want to solve
it.
All right.
So, so the compass now inside ofthis, and I thought I had all
this, uh, yeah, but inside thecompass or just sample questions

(31:29):
like, Hey, what does it looklike for you longterm?
Where do you see yourself?
You know, I always say somethinglike when you leave this
business, what do you want todo?
Right.
What do you want to do next?
So the compass is just about yousetting it.
These are just typicalquestions.
I always start there.
Sometimes I find a problem, butif not, it tells me what I
should be, uh, working towards.
My job is to get you on thelake.

(31:49):
My job is to get you to travelthe U S right.
And we need X amount of dollarsto do that.
That's where I start with theend in mind.
The next part is this thingcalled the nudge pact.
Now this nudge pact I use in twoparts.
I get an upfront.
agreement with the client.
And here's what the way itlooks.
The nudge pack is gettingpermission to push them, getting

(32:13):
permission to coach them, to gofrom advisor to coach.
You know, when you see a coachon the side of a field,
baseball, you know, diamondsoccer field, football field,
they're driving performance,right?
Well, here's where you have toget permission up front.
I tell my clients this.
I'm like, listen, when we startthis, it's going to be hard.

(32:33):
There's going to be a day when Iwant you to go count that
warehouse and you know in yourmind, it's going to take you
three days to do it.
And you're not going to want todo it.
You're going to procrastinate.
I know.
Cause I would, I'm like, Oh, Idon't want to go out there and
deal with that today.
What are some things you do whenyou procrastinate?
What are some things that you dowhen you don't want to do
something?
Right.
That's the question I asked.
What are some things that Iwould see?

(32:53):
And they go, Oh, I'll stoptaking your phone calls.
I won't answer emails.
Uh, you know, I might even cussyou out.
I'm like going, okay.
When you do those things and Isee it, can I call you out on
it?
Can I say, Hey, listen, rememberwhen, uh, when we talked early
on the very first week and Iasked you, what are some things
you do when you don't want to dosomething?
You said this, that, and theother, well, I saw this, that,

(33:16):
and the other, you know, so whatshould we do next?
So what I'm doing is gettingpermission up front to call you
out on your, I'm going to talkTexas for a minute.
I'm gonna call you out on yourbullshit.
Right.
And, but I'm gonna do it in anice way.
Hey, remember you told me youwould do these things.
We did those things.
What should we do about it?
What should we do next becauseI'm trying to get you to move

(33:37):
off of your pedestal or off ofyour, your, whatever's holding
you back.
So the nudge pact is in twoparts.
I do it up front with thecompass and then I do it once
we're taking the action and youstart to stall.
All right.
You ever seen that before?
Or you guys probably do thisalready.

No, but I love it.
I mean, my, so my, to, again, towrap myself out, my best
procrastination is cleaning myhouse.
And I could tell you my househas been very clean lately.
So there you go.
I need to stop doing that.

Mike Milan (34:08):
All right.
Uh, I start off almost everymeeting with clearing the noise,
right?
And the way I do it is with thissentence.
Hey, Hey, it's been a week or sosince we talked, man.
What's going on in your worldlately?
That's me letting you getwhatever's on your mind or off
your chest.
Out into the open.
And once you get the hang ofthat.
Your client will just start totell you the issue up front and

(34:29):
you get to the issue within thefirst couple of minutes of a
meeting rather than trying todig it out of them 15 or 20
minutes later, they'll tell youup front.
Hey, I don't know if I'll makepayroll.
Hey, I bought this and Iprobably shouldn't have because
now I got too much debt and Idon't know if I can make the
debt payments.
They're going to tell youwhatever's on their mind.
I even do it at the beginning ofseminars.
I'm saying, Hey, Bathroom's overhere, we're gonna take a break

(34:50):
at mid morning, we're gonna takean hour for lunch.
I'm clearing the noise,answering all the questions I
think you could have up front,so we can both be committed to
engaging in the conversationthat we're having.
So, clearing the noise.
Yeah, go ahead.

I assume, do you try to make sure to limit the
amount of time of clearing thatnoise?
Because, um, I could seesituations where that noise can
easily take over the whole hourof time if you're not careful
with it, right?

Mike Milan (35:19):
Yeah.
All right.
So that's, that's the biggest,uh, shift that I have to have in
clients, especially right now,tax season.
Everybody says I have to get asmany of these things out in an
hour, right?
Everything is about speed andhow much time.
This is the opposite.
Advisory services and advisoryrelationships are the opposite.
It's okay to let them talk.

(35:40):
It's okay to let them ramble.
If you don't get to your plan orwhatever you wanted, that's okay
too, because you did exactlywhat they wanted and they're
engaged in the conversation forthat whole hour or however long
you're with them.
So don't be in a rush to solve aproblem.
If they want to talk, Maybethat's part of the problem.
They don't have anybody to talkto.
That's great.

(36:03):
Right?

Dan DeLong (36:03):
They need some

Mike Milan (36:04):
friends.
Need some friends.
Yeah, need some friends.
Alright, if I can't find theissue and clear the noise, I
move to the Explorer.
Because usually, some people arevague, like going, I don't know,
it just doesn't feel right.
Then I'll say something like,well, tell me more about that.
What doesn't feel right?
Or can you say that differently?
When I say those two things, canyou say this differently or
what's happening?
Or, you know, uh, tell me moreabout it.

(36:27):
It allows them to rethink aboutwhat they're trying to say.
And maybe say the issue again.
The whole point is to get themto say the issue, because if
they say the issue, then we canstart solving it.
So that's the second thing I dois explore.
And it's just about digging alittle bit deeper, right?
Creating some depth in theirconversation.
It's not about me.
I know what the issue is.
We'll say it's too muchinventory, right?

(36:47):
I've already saw what it is.
I need you to acknowledge thatit's the same problem.

Dan DeLong (36:52):
Now, do you, do you find that Mike, that you're
like.
Because what I'm gathering hereis that these are just tools to
extract from them what, whatthe, what the underlying issue
is, um, you don't have to useall of them.
It's more of, you know, onceyou, once you get something out
of them, then it's, let's moveon to the.

Audio Only - All Particip (37:14):
Yeah,

Dan DeLong (37:15):
that's good hand.
Right.
Exactly.
Right.
So like

Mike Milan (37:18):
with this, if they tell me, Oh, I have a, we'll say
an accounts receivable problem.
Now I got something I can workwith.
That's a cashflow problem,right?
Cashflow.
It's about cashflowoptimization.
Now I can move right into thesolution.
Oh, really?
Accounts receivable.
Okay.
Well, let's walk through that.
And I would say I got a toolthat kind of helps us visualize
it.
And then I opened up the app andI'll kind of show you how this

(37:40):
kind of plays with the app aswell.
Okay.
Uh, if, you know, if you guysdon't mind, it's

Dan DeLong (37:44):
not like you have to go to the next thing of the
Explorer when they've alreadysaid it.

Mike Milan (37:49):
Nope.
Yeah.
If they already said it, don'tgo to the next phase, right?
All I'm doing is just saying,okay, so it's a different way of
trying them to get them to saythe right thing each time, right

tool for the right job, basically, right
tool,

Mike Milan (38:01):
right?
Yeah, so if I've tried twice, Itried clearing the noise and I
tried the Explorer and I stillcan't get to the root of the
problem, I'll use the crowbar,right?
And this one's, this one's indepth.
So I would have to, I would haveto do this in a different thing,
but it's all five questions.
And when you ask somebody fivequestions in this order, you can

(38:22):
backtrack backwards.
And draw a sentence to what thetheme is, right?
So it's what's working, what'sbroken, what's missing, what's
confused, and what's extrashouldn't be here, right?
And I draw it in four differentcolumns.
It's five, five things, but Idraw four different lines.
And I just brainstorm, hey,what's working?
And I just write down whateverthey say, what's broken, write

(38:43):
down whatever they say, what'smissing, what's confused.
And what you'll notice isthere's a part of their
business.
One of the functions of businessis broken.
It's the one that needs theattention because they'll
mention it four or five times.
You're like going here, tell memore about this and you can
actually pop out a problem.
That's why I call it thecrowbar.

(39:03):
Uh, the last one is if you'rejust hardheaded and you don't
want to say it, I will tell youa story about your problem, but
it won't be about you.
It'll be about somebody else.
It's a technique I call let youand him fight.
I'll say, Hey, uh, I had thisclient, He had too much
inventory and I'll tell him abig story about too much
inventory and how it was 50, 000that was sitting on the shelf

(39:24):
that could have been in hispocket and all this type of
stuff.
And I'll end the story with,Hey, if this was you, what would
you do about it?
Because everybody can solvesomebody else's problem.
They can't solve their own.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Once, once he solves the otherperson's the imaginary person's
problem, they'll say, Hey, youthink that would work here?
Do you think that's our problemtoo?

(39:45):
And all of a sudden they go, Ohyeah, you're talking about me.
It's the mere moment where I'mshowing yourself in the mirror,
but I'm showing you through theeyes of somebody else.
So it's you and him fighting,not you looking at yourself and
I'm not judging him.
I'm telling you a story aboutsomebody else can ask me what
you think.
So that's another way to getthem to say the problem is the

(40:05):
mere moment.
The whole goal of this is to putyou in a bucket, right?
Cause if I can put you in aneducation, you just don't, yeah,
I don't know what these numbersare saying, or I feel like I'm
not making any money.
I'm always got losses orcashflow or debt or operations,
or it's about the future.
Then I have a technique insidemy program, the clear path to
cash to solve it, right?
I mean, the home run financialsystem, mining your business for

(40:28):
hidden cash, all of these thingsare what I teach to solve the
problems.
Right.
So the whole point is to ask thequestion, to put them in a
bucket, to solve the issue.
Well, that was an interesting, Iwonder what that said.
Oh, Wonder what that one said.
What did I do?
Hide it.
All right.

(40:48):
Was that the video?
Did you have a Oh, that, that'swhat those were.
Those were videos.
I, I going, I'm like, what wasthat?
All right, so let me show you acouple videos and then I'll show
you how this works in the app tofind problems and how I've built
this guided conversation.
Yeah, that is a video.
How do you press play?
Does it not play That's superinteresting.

(41:15):
There's, imagine if you will youguys, you guys can still see
that, right?
Yes.
But it's all right.
Here we go.
All right, so this is Hoardersand I'm gonna show you two, one
that was really good.
One of'em that had some issuesand they're only about a minute
long.
You probably can't hear or seethat.

Just wanna make sure you turn your, when you're
doing the share, you got theaudio shared.

Mike Milan (41:40):
I, this didn't show up on, on the share.
That's really weird, right?
I've never had that before.
I wonder if it's a Zoom problem.
Hmm.
All right.
Well, that was going to beawesome when I did it because he
had the videos are here.
They just won't play or they'llplay, but they won't.

Dan DeLong (42:04):
Yeah.
The, uh, when you share, you gotto hit the, uh, share sound.

Yeah.
So stop your share, pull it backup and then you'll see the
little box on the right handside.
It's the share audio also.

Mike Milan (42:15):
Uh, okay.
Share audio or share audio at,uh, I've got to

Dan DeLong (42:23):
stop sharing first.
Oh, then when you share again,there'll be like a check box to
share the computer audio.

Mike Milan (42:32):
I got it.
Okay.
So share.
I'll share this.
Where's the share the box atshare sound.
Perfect.
Got it.

Dan DeLong (42:42):
Zoom technical support also on the QB power
hour.

Well, they keep changing where the buttons go
all the time.

Dan DeLong (42:49):
They do.
They do.

Mike Milan (42:53):
All right.
Okay.
You think I could share thisagain or

not?
Let's go for the play.

Dan DeLong (43:02):
That doesn't work.
Yeah, some, I don't think thatvideo is in, in the, in the
presentation.

Mike Milan (43:08):
All right, we'll do it this way.

Video (43:26):
Hi Dolores.
Hi.
David Tolan.
How are you?
Very good.
Very good.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
May I come in?
Yes.
Okay, great.
Thanks.

Video (2) (43:35):
I'm Dr.
David Tolan.
I'm a clinical psychologist anda specialist in the study and
treatment of hoarding disorder.

Video (43:41):
So tell me what we're looking at here.
A mess.
A mess.
Chaos.
Chaos.
Yeah.
Where did all this stuff comefrom?
Shopping, shopping, shopping.
So you're a shopaholic?
Shopaholic.
And a hoarder.
And a hoarder, too?
Mm hmm.
What makes you think that?
Because I keep bringing stuffin.
Okay, and you just pile stuff uphere.

(44:04):
And the pile gets Higher andhigher.
Yeah, as you could see.

Mike Milan (44:11):
All right.
So Matt, what'd you see?

Um, I'm, I'm starting to sweat.
My brain can't focus whenthere's clutter like that.
Like I literally in my house,started removing all flat areas
to get rid of all the clutter.
Um,

Mike Milan (44:26):
All right.
So, so let's think about this.
You're looking at it.
I don't want you to look at thehoard, right?
Because everybody that comes inwith a set of financial
statements could have as big amess.
And they couldn't needQuickBooks cleaned up.
That could be just totally justdestroyed somehow.
But think about this.
He walks up to the front door.
You already see the remnants ofthe horde.

(44:47):
There's stuff on the front porcheven.
Right?
So, that's what I'm saying.
He sees the problem.
He knows that the problemexists.
When he goes in, he doesn'tjudge.
He could go, What the heck'sgoing on here?
What are you doing?
This is a mess.
Yeah, this is a mess.
Instead, he got

her to say she was a hoarder and then he
actually had her validated asecond time by saying Why do you
think that?
Right?
Instead of it just being Boom.

Mike Milan (45:11):
That's what I'm saying.
This is an example of somethinggood.
He got her to say this, thosethings.
And he didn't come in and judgeanything.
He says, Hey, tell me what I'mlooking at.
That's important because it letsthe person start to rationalize.
Well, maybe it's not as bad as Ithink it is.
If I can talk him through this,he'll see it the same way I do.
Right.
You'll see that play out overand over and over again.

(45:32):
This is the same way with abusiness owner.
They think that, you know, Hey,I'm just.
Keeping this thing afloat.
Uh, this is the way I dobusiness, even though, you know,
it's a mess.
So, I mean, I mean, you know,

Dan DeLong (45:43):
exactly where everything is there.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
That's, that's my system.

So, yeah, I mean, I got my spot piles all
over the place in the past.
Right.
So we're guilty of that kind ofthing.
Yeah.

Mike Milan (45:56):
So here's one that doesn't go out so well.
Um, meaning it's not, she's notas agreeable up front.
So let's watch this.
Don't get sucked into the horde.
Right?
Pay attention to theconversation, right?
This is a, this is a class aboutconversation.
All right, watch this one.

Video (2) (46:20):
So Sherry and I have had a chance to look at each of
the rooms of the house and get asense of what's going on.
Mom, I don't want to make youupset, but mom, this house is
killing you.
No it isn't.
It is.
The mice.
What do you think needs tohappen here?

Video (3) (46:37):
I don't want them here.
I don't want to kill them.
I've tried to trap them, butthey're outsmarted me.

Video (2) (46:44):
She's saying, I know these mice need to go.
I know this isn't safe for me.
And yet she feeds them.
Judy, like so many hoarders, isambivalent.
She wants two different thingsthat can't coexist.
She wants to have the mice andnot have the mice.
She wants to clean up and notclean up.
So who should we call, and whatshould we ask them to do?

Video (3) (47:07):
Probably an exterminator, but then that
means that they're gonna killhim.

Video (2) (47:11):
So maybe we've got some discussion, some
negotiation to do around thatissue.

Video (3) (47:16):
Where do you go to the bathroom?
I, that I will not discuss.

Video (2) (47:20):
You're killing me.
She's embarrassed.
But, I can do the math.

Dan DeLong (47:27):
And what did you see on that one?
Just that, you know, the visionof, you know, the resistance,
you know, right off the bat.
Um, I think emanating from, fromthe, from the family member as
they were like, you know, tryingto do this intervention type of
thing.
Uh, and I think that's whatimmediately, um, you know, put

(47:50):
up that wall of resistance for.

Mike Milan (47:54):
Yeah.
First of all, if anybody startsoff a sentence, like, I don't
want to offend you, you know,the next thing that's going to
happen is

Dan DeLong (48:00):
going to be offensive.
No offense, but it's somethingoffensive.
The thing

Mike Milan (48:07):
that I, this reminds me of is if you've ever worked
with a business with partners,sometimes when they're in the
same room, one is a little bit,every time they say something
that creates volatility, itcreates resistance.
It creates.
Something.
What I like what the doctor didthere is he immediately diverts
it to something important.

(48:28):
He sees the resistance go up.
No, it's not right.
This house is killing you.
No, it's not.
And he goes, the mice, right?
And he points directly at aproblem, right?
To break the chain of the no,it's not.
Yes, it is.
Because who knows how long thatgoes on and it gets worse.
So he goes right to somethingthat's important.
And he gets her to at leastunderstand that the mice are a

(48:49):
problem.
What I really like is that hedidn't solve the problem.
He goes, who should we call andwhat do you think they should do
about it?
Again, remember the firstexample I gave you of doing this
live is how can we get out ofthis room?
It's them coming up with asolution and then walking them
down the path, even though shedoesn't want the mice to be
killed.

(49:09):
He doesn't say, well, duh, it'san exterminator.
What do you think that means?
He says, well, we got somediscussions and negotiations to
do about that.
He doesn't just poopoo it andshut it down.
He actually gives her away andthen the daughter chimes in
again and the barrier comes backup.
So again, what I do is I look atthe interaction and try to say,

(49:32):
I can apply some of thistechnique to my conversation
with clients because they're alot more agreeable to committing
to action if I can get them to,to, to at least say it up front.
All right.
If you don't mind, I want toshow you what the client
conversation coach looks like inaction.
Is that okay?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, so inside my stuff, I say mystuff, my membership is an app,

(50:00):
right?
So people, some people know mefrom being, you know, part of
the.
Uh, cashflow tool team,Phenograph team.
Uh, I've also built other apps,so this is the latest one and it
does all the calculations that Iteach.
But the one I want to talk abouttoday is this thing called the
client conversation coach,right?
And how this works using acombination of what I call AI
and MI.
MI is my stuff, right?

(50:24):
AI, everybody knows what AI is,but my stuff.
Uh, and believe it or not, Ihave a t shirt that says AI does
not equal ME.
Because it doesn't have mytiming, doesn't have my
instinct, it doesn't have, youknow, the personnel skills or
personal skills that we have,right?
So AI as a tool, it's not thething.
So, if you look at this, I'vebuilt it kind of like a chatbot,
but some of my clients now havethis off to the side to just

(50:46):
help them remember how to get tothe problem and what to do to
solve it.
So, I start the conversation inthree different places depending
on who I'm talking to.
I don't always use the compasswith somebody I talk to every
week or every month.
Right.
I don't use the compass with thesales prospect because I just
want to try to show them that Ican solve their problem.

(51:07):
So Matt, who we want to talk totoday?

Let's do, um, a new onboarding client.

Mike Milan (51:16):
All right.
So when we do no new onboardingclient, that's somebody I'm
talking to for the first time.
Guess what we're using, right?
We're going to use, well, we'regoing to use the compass.
So, and then I tell you, Hey,try asking them this.
So I'm going to tell you, here'sthe technique to use.
Here's why you should use it.
Here's how to do it, right?
Three different things there.
Technique to use.
Now I say we're going to go tostart with end in mind and I'll

(51:38):
say, click here to start and itwill open up, start with end in
mind, right?
So that's one of the things I'mhelping you to do is once you
get there, I'm going to show youthe technique to use next.
So let's say that we did that.
That was cool, but let's keepgoing.
So when we keep going, we'regoing to use clear the noise,
right?
And when you do this, I'm sayinghere, we're going to clear the
noise.
What's been good on your worldlately, or what's been worrying

(52:00):
you.
What's keeping up at night.
I want you to listen for issues,right?
These is helping you put, putyour client in the bucket.
I have taken down the 12 mostcommon things I've heard from
clients over the last 20 years.
You know, I don't understand mynumbers.
I'm always out of cash.
Uh, we're drowning in debt.
Nothing runs smoothly here.
So I've built this to, whereasdo you hear anything like this?

(52:24):
So Dan, do you hear anythinglike this?
You know, we're clearing thenoise.
Let's just say, I can't tell.
They're too vague.
Let's do that one first.
Right?
So you see what happens next.
If I say, I can't tell, I clickon that and it says, okay, we'll
try this one.
Try the Explorer, right?
The Explorer is, Hey, here's whywe do the Explorer.
Here's tell me more.
Or can you say that differently?

(52:45):
Do you hear an issue?
So Dan, do you hear one of theseissues in our pretend client?

Dan DeLong (52:50):
Um, that one that you're hovering over, our costs
are.
Eating all our profits.
Eating all our profits.
All right.
So if I click that, it's goingto say, okay, very topical.

Mike Milan (53:00):
Yeah.
Right.
Awesome.
You can go to the province.
All right.
So here's what to do next,right?
I want you to use mining yourbusiness for hidden cash, and I
want you to go into some pricingand cost analysis.
But if I click on mining yourbusiness for hidden cash, it's
going to open up that techniqueand I'll just.
Pick up some data here.
Hey, listen, this is why you'reeating up all your profits,

(53:21):
right?
You've got, we just found 11million of hidden cash.
It's a sample data, but 11million of hidden cash.
Most of it's in sales, buteverybody can sell more.
Right?
So let's just turn that off.
That's just saying you gotenough stuff.
You don't need to go buy anothertruck.
You don't need to go openanother office.
You have enough stuff to sellmore.
So then I turned that off and itkind of recalculates and focuses
us where the problem is.

(53:42):
So from here, we're like going,Oh, this is why you don't have
enough profits.
You are really underpricing,right?
Your biggest problem is in grossprofit.
You're spending.
Okay.
You actually have a little bittoo much inventory, but not a
lot.
That's not a big problem.
You're collecting a little slow,but you're paying.
Right on time.
So let's just turn off thethings we're doing good at
because you're doing good atthem.

(54:03):
Now, if we were playing namethat tune, I'd say I can put 3
million in your pocket in threemoves in three notes, right?
We have a pricing problem, youknow, that we need to address or
something with our vendors.
Uh, we've got too much inventoryand We have accounts receivable
problems.
So now I know where to focus is.
And if you don't know where tostart fixing the company, start

(54:25):
with the longest red line, whichmeans I would start here and
start to put this cash back intoour, our business.
Uh, so that's kind of the way wedo that.
And if I went to like, cause wehad an inventory problem, I
would do cash conversion, right?
So cash conversion is, Hey,we've got too much inventory.
That's for a service basedcompany.
Let me move to an inventorycompany.

(54:45):
This is saying that you're short300, 000, right?
That's your cash conversion.
It's the financial gap.
You don't have enough money torun your business.
That's why it feels clunky.
I'm always waiting for money tocome in before I can make a
payment or, you know, dosomething else.
Well, this says you've got 92days of inventory, which is 1.
4 million on the balance sheet.
If I reduce that, look what kindof happens.

(55:05):
You see the number of reducingthe smaller, your financial gap,
the less money it takes to runyour business.
So if I just reduce that andlook for it to go blue and
positive.
Oh, there it is.
See that red blue.
You should have 63 days worth ofinventory to keep up with your
sales.
Well, how much is that, Mike?
Oh, 1 million.
When you look at your balancesheet, right now it says 1.

(55:26):
4 million.
I want you to run it down to amillion, and every time it goes
over a million, run it backdown, or you're going to create
the same problem over and overand over again.
Alright, so that's one of theways I help people, uh, do this
is give them a visual of what'shappening.
Really simple, and simple ishard, but I can actually guide
them towards the solution andthen hold them accountable to
take an action.

(55:46):
So,

so question for you, Mike, um, the information
that you're showing, obviouslydemo data, but how does this
information get pulled in?
Is this a connecting to acompany file and it's got some
fancy algorithms or are therecertain numbers that you're
plugging in and you help usunderstand that part?

Mike Milan (56:05):
Yeah.
So you can do it two differentways, right?
So, uh, I can do it with userinput.
If I just want to do onecalculation, don't want to
connect to somebody's QuickBookfile.
Maybe it's a sales prospect.
I can just type in a fewnumbers.
And actually get to thecalculation, or it's got a
QuickBooks online connection,which does about three years
worth of data in years andmonths and quarters and rolling
years, if you did that.
So you can even select rollingyears, which is what I like.

(56:27):
Cause it smooths it out.
Right.
So January to December, thenFebruary to January and so on
and so forth.
Uh, if I do just.
manual input and I want to dojust a fast money formula, I
just type in these numbers so Ican do it during a sales call
and show them demonstrations ismost powerful way, uh, to
actually sell, right?

(56:48):
It's like, Oh, he did that in 15minutes.
I'm that's the guy to help me.
He didn't show me his package ofhow he fills out reports.
He showed me what my problem isand that he can solve it.

Beautiful.

Mike Milan (56:59):
So,

Dan DeLong (57:00):
and you, and you take it a little bit different
approach then, you know, Mosttraditional folks of as far as,
um, an app or, you know, a toolis, you don't necessarily sell
the tool you sell on the courseof how to how to use said tool
and, uh, The app or the toolcomes, comes along with it.

(57:23):
Right.

Mike Milan (57:23):
Yeah.
So here's what I did at cashflowtool and all the other software
companies I worked at, we wouldbe a software company.
And then we would try tosprinkle in education and then
people get lost.
So like, like cashflow tool isso robust and so many different
levers and pulls and things likethis.
You almost have to take a courseto be able to know how to use it
properly and get it and beeffective.
And some, some software thatI've bought is like that.

(57:44):
I'm not going, I get, I getconfused, frustrated, and I shut
off the software.
I'm like, ah, it's probably theright tool.
I just don't know how to use it.
So I said, I'm going to take adifferent approach this year,
these last two years.
And I'm going to become aneducation company with software,
which means I'm going to teachyou how to do all this stuff and
give you the tool.
So the way I've done is just,it's just a membership to keep
going and, and, and be part ofthe community, uh, to get live

(58:09):
coaching.
And what people are using thelive coaching for now is they'll
bring real life client issues.
Hey, I'm working with thismanufacturing company on
Tuesday.
Here's what I'm seeing.
Give me a strategy to help me gothrough it.
So it's, it's more like you'rehiring me to be part of your
team, right?
To help you either sell, I evenjump on sales calls with people
that kind of help, you know,this process, uh, when I, when I

(58:29):
got time and opportunity.
The other thing is that the toolis not per user.
It's not per client.
It's like going, I want you touse it with everybody.
Sales calls.
It doesn't matter.
Use it because that's the way,uh, most people get the most
benefit.

Dan DeLong (58:45):
So it's not like a tiered, you know, start with
simple start and then we'll moveyou on up to advanced.
It's, you know, learn how to usethis tool and, you know.
You, you, you, you get unlimitedaccess, uh, to the tool.

Mike Milan (59:02):
Yeah.
Well, and then still on, you getthe whole video course, right?
Cause I've got the video courseand I've got a hundred different
worksheets, spreadsheets and allthat type of stuff that go
deeper than just the app rightnow.
So like, Oh, when I say likepricing analysis, I have
worksheets and spreadsheets forthat.
That's not built into the appyet, but it gives you something
to work with your client with.
The second thing is the support,right?
So you got, I got training thevideo courses, you got support,

(59:24):
which is about 15 times a month.
I have, we'll call open officehours, but there's their topic
driven.
And then the app.
Uh, as well, all comes as apackage, uh, it also in the
professional package, you canget 27 hours of CPE through
NASBA now as well.

Dan DeLong (59:43):
Learn and grow at the same time, and you've made,
um, you've made available the,the, the book, um, as, as an
ebook, uh, for, for our usersand we have it on our, um, on
our landing pages.
So the, if you just want to, um,get a refresher of, of what this
is, uh, Recapsulation of whatMike was talking about today.

(01:00:05):
You can access that on the QBPower Hour landing page there
for you.
I did make it available therewhile you were Uh, showing one
of those hoarder skits, whichsomebody asked, where do you get
those?

Mike Milan (01:00:20):
You

Dan DeLong (01:00:20):
scour

YouTube and clip

them out.

Yeah.
So, uh, the other thing before Iturn it back to you is that, you
know, uh, I, I just, you know,you know, Michelle and I have
been friends for a long time,Dan, Matt, all of us been
friends for a long time, uh, foryour group, anybody that's
watching this, uh, no upfrontfee.
And the reason I charge enoughup free is because I give you
the whole course up front,right.
Um, but for your group.
No upfront fee.
You can just jump into amembership and go from there.

(01:00:47):
Uh, if anyone wants to talkabout it, my email address is
mike at cashflow mike.
com.
Super easy to remember.
And, uh, that's the discountcode if you can share that with
your folks.
So, uh, I'll turn it back toyou.
Thanks guys.
All

right.
Yeah.
So we, uh, really appreciate youMike joining us today.
Uh, I did want to throw the lastpoll question, um, so that we
can, where'd it go?
Oh, there it is.
Okay.
Um, for, you know, cause somepeople were asking, how do you.
Get this app.
How do we get become a member?
So we'll grab that as a lastpoll question.

(01:01:21):
So maybe we can help you followup with with those folks that
that might be interested inusing this tool.
Matthew, any, uh, any, any finalthoughts of what we covered here
today?

Matthew Fulton (01:01:32):
You know, just a kind of a, um, word of praise.
You know, I've, I'm fortunate tohave known Mike now for many,
many years.
And we've worked together onmany different things.
When you're talking aboutcashflow, truly, this guy's
earned his nickname.
He really, really understandsit.
So I put my word on it.
It's worth getting into thecommunity.
Check it out.

(01:01:53):
Mike's great guy.
Super knowledgeable.
He's got a big heart, alwayswilling to help people.
So good stuff.

Thanks, man.
Awesome.
All right.
So next, uh, next time on the QBpower hour, Matt, Matthew and I
are going to be talking aboutbridging the apps, not bridging
the gaps, bridging the apps, uh,and how you can utilize Zapier,
uh, as a no code option to, um,to bridge those integrations
that are just a little.

(01:02:19):
On the needs more side ofthings.
So, uh, hopefully you join us ina couple of weeks for that.
Uh, we appreciate everyone thatdid join us today.
Um, and hope you have a greatweek and we'll see you next time
on the QB power hour.
Have a great day, everyone.

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