Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, you live then too, Sue, Wow, great you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It's the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man
W four c Y Radio. And I'm very excited about
our next guest because this is a positively pipeman guest. Okay,
he has a show on our station. But get that
for a second. He's just brilliant in what he projects
(00:39):
about powerful business strategies. So what I like to know
is who is Michael Barbarita? Anyway, Well, thank you, thank
you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Great to be here, by the way, thank you for
having me.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Oh my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And what I'd like to do is just, you know,
give you a little story of my background. So back
in night ninety nine, I just sold my second business successfully.
My first business sold for multiple seven figures, and I
had this attitude that I could do no wrong. You know,
after owning and exiting two successful businesses, I thought I
had the keys to the business kingdom, and then quite frankly,
(01:16):
that I could succeed in any business. So in all
of this glory, I started an outpatient rehabilitation facility called
Freedom Therapy Center. Now, in all the successful businesses that
I owned, I always and this is this is the
critical party. I always implemented business and financial strategies that
my competition wasn't doing. For example, my first business was
(01:41):
a ski specialty retail business, and I grew the company
from two and a half million to eight million in
five years. And the contributing factor to that growth was
a strategy that we preached called a risk reversal, where
the seller in the transaction takes most of all the risk.
And one of the problems that the customer had in
the ski industry is they really never knew if the
(02:02):
ski they were being sold by some hot shot ski
salesperson was the right ski for them until they went
up in the mountain and tried it out. So what
we did is we implemented what we call the ski guarantees.
Ski the ski three times you don't like it, bring
it back for a brand new pair, and keep bringing
it back until we get it right now. Now, keep
(02:22):
in mind what happens when skis hit the slope. They'd
depreciate dramatically. It's like driving a car out of a
show room. So my managers and my employees thought I
was absolutely out of my mind because all they could
do is they envisioned thousands of pair of skis coming
back from the field and them having to do all
this extra work and us losing a ton of money.
(02:46):
But my mindset was a little different, you know, and
during the course of the next shows and stuff, as
we as we go through our journey, I'm going to
talk about how important mindset is. My mindset was that
all the customer really wanted was a great ski experience.
They went out to you know, put one over on
the retailer. So what we did when we implemented, we
(03:10):
the first year we implemented the program, we sold eight
thousand pair of skis, a twenty five percent increase from
the previous year, and only eight came back. And next
year we sold the bill. Yeah, it's unbelievable. And so
eleven thousand pair of skis the next year and only
fourteen came back. You know, it's it's something.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
See, I'm like, who you were talking about.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I'm imagining when you first said this, I'm imagining like
somebody like wipes out on the slopes the ski, the
skis snap in half and they bring them back because
you know, hey, it didn't work for them, right right?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
No, Yeah, that you know, all all of skier wants
at least. This is what my research, all we showed
and how we ran our business is that all they
wanted was a great ski experience. It's not a lot
to ask. Yeah, But then when I fast forward to
Freedom Therapy Center, which was the patient rehabilitation facility, I
must have taken stupid pills because I did exactly exactly
(04:08):
what my competition was doing. The way I marketed. I
bought over two thousand chocolate cakes, and I tried to
bribe front office staffs to get to the doctors. That's
what everybody was doing. I offered services the exact same
way my competition was offering. Now, no compelling offers, no
strategic direction, and and and I know how to manage
(04:31):
cash flow because I'm a financial guy. Oh god, we
were averageing cash every month. I had to go into
my savings to fund the operating losses we're having.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
And nobody wants to operate a business like.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
That, No, trust me. That that's where that's yeah, that's
where you really learn, uh, how how horrible a business
could be when when when you have cash flow problems,
it's just it's just off. Everybody's calling everybody. And you
know what was interesting too, is I made one of
(05:08):
those promises to myself that we business owners always make,
you know, just certain promises. I promised myself I wouldn't
put any more money into the company bank account for
my savings, and of course I broke that promise. But
you know, thank god I wasn't married. I'd be under
the pressure of being told to get a real job,
and I was staying up nights wondering what I was
doing wrong. I was waking up in the middle of
(05:29):
the night with cold sweats, worried about cash flow and
all the customers I was losing. There was a million
wednesdays where there was no money in the company bank account,
the payroll do on Friday, all the employees were leaving.
They saw a sinking ship. People we owed money to
were calling left and right. There was personal liability glore,
and then it just all ended. I just cool. I
(05:51):
just fell on my face. And it's funny, you know.
I learned two things from that experience falling on my face.
Number one, I learned that one of the hardest steps
to take in life is the step after the fall,
the next step.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So thirty days after I sold Freedom Therapy, sorry, closed
Freedom therapy center. Next step CFO was born. And then
the second thing I learned is I'm no longer doing
what my competition is doing.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I think that's a right there.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Like even I've seen, Okay, there's places where they have
pizza restaurants and one closes and the new one opens up,
and it closes and the new one opens up, and
it's like, I always think to myself, do these people
not get that every other pizza place has failed either
they have to do something different or don't do pizza.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah. I noticed that too in a few places in
our market that repetitive same business, open, closed, open clobsa
same industry, same same thing. It is really crazy. And
so yeah, so you know, if you take all of
my background, I've got about forty years of business ownership
(07:13):
experience and you know, I uh I you mentioned the
radio show. I also wrote a book called Powerful Business
Strategies Coocident. I am a magazine contributor. You know, I
grew up business from two and a half million to
eight million in the ski industry, and uh, you know,
(07:33):
I'm also what's called a certified profit coach Dean. And
let me tell you what a certified profit coach is
you know, there's there's so many coaches and consultants that
really don't know how to grow a small business. And
the reason why it's being a certified profit coach is
(07:53):
so important is we go through rigorous training to prove
that we do know how to grow a small business.
And there are very few coaches and consultants out there
that go through that type of vigorous training to prove
that they can actually do it. And so I'm really
proud of that designation. And I believe that anybody who
(08:13):
doesn't hire a certified profit coach, and there's only about
one hundred and fifty of us, it's just making a
big mistake.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well I'll even add to that, okay, because you just
hit one of my things, because I have certifications in coaching,
and it so boggles my mind these people that they
wake up in the morning they decide to be a
coach with no qualifications, no certifications, no education, no nothing,
(08:46):
And it's like.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Oh my god, it's like everybody's a coach.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And I have to say that people that are listening
right now, watching right now, you wouldn't hire a lawyer
that didn't pass the bar. You would didn't hire a
serified financial planner that wasn't a cerfied financial planner, you know.
And so I think that the professional designation, specifically like
(09:11):
the one that you have, it is absolutely necessary if
you're going to be coaching somebody. I mean, I had
somebody I know that funny enough, he was a wealth coach, okay,
but he both he drove a beat up pickup truck
that was all rusty and never made money in his life. Like, listen,
(09:33):
if you've become wealthy and lost it all, I'm okay
with you being a coach.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You have the roadmap to get there.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay, we all fall off the mountain, okay, But if
you have never been to the mountain, how do you
give people the GPS directions to get there? You know,
you've never been there. And so that's why I just
wanted to add that's so important, and that people do
business with people like yourself that put in the time
(10:05):
and effort to become a professional, and they don't just
wake up in the morning and say, oh, I'll be somebody's.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Coach, right.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And you know, the interesting thing too, is that every
CFO in the Fortune five hundred has to be strategic
Yet many fractional CFOs get away without having to be strategic.
In other words, many fractional CFOs just do the stuff
that is really what most people think CFOs do, which
(10:36):
is the business and cash flow forecasting, identifying critical metrics
in the business, solving cash flow problems. But we add
that element of business strategy, which is something that like
I said, if you didn't, if you're a CFO in
the Fortune five hundred and you're not, you don't understand
business strategy, you don't get the job.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And that, yeah, it's like a chess game to me.
You can't play chess unless you don't know all the
strategic moves of what's gonna happen, like you should not.
And I think your experience also leads to that, Like
forget the good experience for a second. The failing experience
is what allows you to be able to help others
(11:20):
to be strategic because you can anticipate because listen, you
know before that happened, and you even alluded to it,
and we all get like this, we think we're unstoppable.
We don't think about that. We can you know that
we have to strategize against what could happen in a
negative way, because it's not gonna happen to us until
(11:43):
it does. And then you have somebody like you that
can really and give people the insight to the strategy
so that they don't walk through the same steps you
did on the negative side, but do walk through the
same steps on the positive side.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Exactly and tell. And so that's basically ended my background.
And you know, one of the reasons why I went
into this this business is because I learned so much
from the business experience that I had. Yeah that you know,
like now, you never lived long enough to see it all,
I'll say, I'll still say that, but I believe I
(12:24):
have seen a lot, a lot of a lot of
different things. And I have I have four clients in uh,
in Denmark and around the world as well as in
the United uh several clients in the United States.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Nice And so, how do people reach out to you?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Check out your website, check you on socials, contact you
so they could get some strategies for profit and success.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Well, here's the best way. Uh uh. You know one
of the things that I do, I'm always we're always
updating our book. Why is that? Well, this is always changing.
I mean, just a couple of months ago, it was
you know, higher interest rates and high inflation, and you
know today it's similar, but we're now adding tariffs to
(13:11):
the mix. So we're constantly testing our strategies. We know
they'd work in any economic environment, but we need industry
information to prove what we already know. And so what
we'd like to we'd like doing is we love interviewing
business owners for the next edition of our book and
get their insights. And the way it works, the way
(13:33):
the interview works is it's sixty minutes on zoom. I
present a strategy, I present strategies from the book, and
then I ask the interviewe what they think the impact
would be if somebody in their industry implemented that strategy,
and then I documented for the book. And the way
to get a book interview is just go to NEXTSTEPCFO
(13:55):
dot net, forward slash forward slash contact, fill out the content,
and in the message box just put the word book
interview and I'll send you a calendar link to schedule
a book interview with me.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Nice And then how about let's tell everybody about your show,
how they can see it live, how they can catch
the podcast, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Okay. Yes, our podcast is located at Powerful Business Strategies
dot com. Our show ams on w FOCY on Mondays
at new Eastern time. It's an hour show. It's called
Powerful Business Strategies, just like our book, and we go
over business and financial strategies that your competition isn't doing.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And let's tell people about the book and how they
could get their hands on the book as well.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Okay. One of the great things about the book is
it's free. I give it away. It's my contribution to
the business world. There is some very valuable strategies in
that book, both business and financial by the way, and
you could just go to my website next step CFO
dot net and download it, simple as that.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Nice. Well, I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I can't wait to talk to you again next week
on the Positively Pipeman segment of the Adventures of Pipeman.
And thanks for being here. And I look forward to
a lot more great strategies for our listeners and viewers.
And I know you help a lot of people. Everybody
needs to reach out to you if they have a business,
because to me, it's the only thing that's going to make.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Their dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Thanks a lot, Michael for having me, Thank you for
listening to the adventures of Pipemin. I'm w for CUI Radio.