[00:01:32] A.J. Lawrence: Hello, Rocky, thank you so much for coming on the show. I’m really excited to learn more about what you’re doing now and about where you are as an entrepreneur. This is pretty exciting to have you here on the show.

[00:01:42] Rocky Lalvani: Thank you so much for having me. Excited to join with you and for the conversation we’re gonna have.

[00:01:48] A.J. Lawrence: Sounds great. Given your background and given how much you are helping, you know you’re working with so many entrepreneurs now, how do you see where you are as an entrepreneur? Where are you on your own entrepreneurial journey?

[00:02:01] Rocky Lalvani: So I’m probably somewhat towards the end. And what I mean by the end is that, I really want to capture more and more of my time and have time freedom. So it’s an end from a time standpoint, although I’m still gonna do what I do, at least for a few more years. After that, I’m not so sure what it’s going to hold.

[00:02:25] I always wanna be doing something. So, I love to learn and I need boundaries in my life. So, my business gives me boundaries. It forces me to focus my time and to get things done. Without having those boundaries, I tend to get bad habits. It’s probably the best way to say it. And I love what I do, so it’s fun. And that’s kind of where I’m at, still figuring it out.

[00:02:52] A.J. Lawrence: That is really cool because I do think, and putting myself, a lot of entrepreneurs, we kind of feel there’s like this ongoing, like just our business and that’s everything. But then eventually we all kind of get to a point where it’s, well, what happens next?

[00:03:11] So how are you looking at defining sort of what this transition maybe over the next few years? Is it just more of like, all right, you’re going to think about it, or have you been planning this?

[00:03:24] Rocky Lalvani: So somewhat planning. Part of the planning is building products that don’t require my time long term. So taking everything and going to digital. Thinking about a platform that might work going forward. From the real estate side, we’re starting to back out of local properties because I don’t wanna be tied to where I am anymore. My kids are now in college and about to start life. They are not coming back home, right. So we want freedom. And we want to remove the baggage that’s holding us in place.

[00:03:56] I think our next big step is when do I have grandkids and what does my involvement look like with them? But that’s outta my control. So we know that’s coming. It’s still years down the line. In the meantime, I think it’s in having the flexibility to travel more, to do more things, and having that kind of freedom and not necessarily being tied down. And so I’m pivoting my business ever so slightly to give me that going forward and changing the way that I’m doing things.

[00:04:27] A.J. Lawrence: No, that is important. A lot of people talk about building, Oh, remove yourself from the business, work on the business, not in the business. But I think as entrepreneurs, we don’t always think of what that means as we look to kind of move on.

[00:04:42] Do we keep it so it just runs with a little bit of us or not. So I like the way you’re thinking about that. Just outta curiosity, where are you located? You were saying?

[00:04:51] Rocky Lalvani: I’m in Pennsylvania.

[00:04:53] A.J. Lawrence: Ex-New Yorker, but I’m in Southern Spain right now.

[00:04:56] Rocky Lalvani: Ah. And see, that’s what I want the flexibility to be able to do that.

[00:05:01] And when I look at time zones and I look at how I’m doing things, I realize I have to make some slight changes. And so those are the changes that are going on now. So that probably, maybe in two years, I’m fully able to be mobile and time zones won’t be as much of an issue as they probably are currently. So it’s by lessening my load, I get everything into a reasonable time.

[00:05:24] A.J. Lawrence: Cool. Yeah.

[00:05:26] So given what you’re doing and everything, what is something that has helped you become the entrepreneur that you’ve already become and that you’re continuing to develop, what is one thing that you think has had a major impact on your own journey?

[00:05:40] Rocky Lalvani: All those things in the background.

[00:05:41] A.J. Lawrence: Haha… you’re a reader too.

[00:05:43] Rocky Lalvani: I am a reader. You know, at any given time there are three or four books open that I’m going through. And the reality is we can learn from our mistakes or we can learn from other people’s mistakes. We can create success by doing the long, slow journey, or we can speed it up by learning from other people.

[00:06:04] And so I find, if I can learn from others, it’s just so much faster to be able to do it by reading from their stories and learning how they did it, and then picking up a nugget or two and making a teeny change to the way I do things. And it’s all those little teeny changes that over time add up to dramatic success.

[00:06:26] It’s not like this, you know, I gotta take this big step. It’s, let me take a little step today and how does that change going tomorrow? And they all compound, compoundings an immense, immense, powerful force. But you gotta keep taking the little steps.

[00:06:43] A.J. Lawrence: Is there a certain process you use or you just, you know, are you reading by subject? Are you taking notes? What guides you’re learning?

[00:06:51] Rocky Lalvani: So what I do, I’m not a big underliner or anything else. What I do is in the back of every book, what I actually do is I put sticky note. So as I read, I just, if something hits me, I write down the page number and I write down something to refer me back to that.

[00:07:08] And then if I think it’s really important, I star it. So as I pick up this book, I can just go right to the back and go, Oh, okay. Oh yeah, I remember that. Let me go read that little piece again. So I don’t have to reread the book. I can go right to what I found impactful in the past and just jump right to that.

[00:07:27] A.J. Lawrence: I like that, yeah. Cuz I have a bad tendency of basically buying every business book that looks interesting and then having unread potential futures in my head. And then, sadly going through Blinkist or some other service for books I already own. But I like, that’s an interesting process.

[00:07:47] Rocky Lalvani: I’ve done Blinkist, I wasn’t as thrilled. I mean it’s a great book summary, but it’s what’s important to them, not to me.

[00:07:54] A.J. Lawrence: Yes, I’ve noticed that. It’s funny, I think as they’ve grown where early on I think it was very much they had people who were familiar with the material doing it. Now they have more generalized researchers. So, sometimes it’s like, okay, that’s an interesting if you’re here, but if you’re here, that’s not as important.

[00:08:16] When did reading become really important? Cuz I know for me, when I started in my twenties I read everything and I thought I knew everything. But, when I started doing stuff, it was like nothing I had read made any sense. And then all of a sudden it was like, Oh, now that I’ve made a few mistakes, things make more sense. So where on your journey did this start really having more of an impact for you?

[00:08:41] Rocky Lalvani: I think I’ve always been somewhat of a reader. Probably not as much on the business and life side. I think that all started probably about 10 years ago when I kind of had started on the self discovery journey. And then I started changing the way I was looking at the world, what I was doing and the way that I was doing things.

[00:09:04] And so I think at that point things really started to change. The other problem is I think, pre-internet and even pre-good information on the internet. It was super hard to find good books. You know, it was whatever the publisher said was good. It wasn’t, Hey, this guy’s actually got phenomenal stuff. How do I dig through a million things to find that one? And that’s the problem. Today, that’s easier than ever. And the sharing of books, the sharing of communication is just so much better than it’s ever been. I’ve been able to find my tribe, and so I think it’s just that mix along with the journey I’m on that has really tremendously helped me to kind of move forward.

[00:09:51] A.J. Lawrence: You mentioned that a few years ago you started working on your own personal development. Is there any type of specific process or anything specifically, or is it just more of a discovery across different efforts?

[00:10:03] Rocky Lalvani: I grew up, we were told go to college, get a job, get married, have a happy life.

[00:10:06] A.J. Lawrence: Yeah. That stuff.

[00:10:07] Rocky Lalvani: Right? So I did that and I built wealth doing that, right. And I thought, okay, this is gonna be perfect. And you get to a certain point you have wealth, you have everything you’re supposed to have, and you’re like, I feel like something’s missing. You know, there are parts that aren’t right. There are parts of my life that I still struggle with.

[00:10:29] How do I start fixing these things? And I think that was more what it was. It’s starting to find and fix all of that and be super intentional in those specific areas.

[00:10:42] A.J. Lawrence: Given that you are reading so much, what’s something that you’re finding really interesting? For entrepreneurs, it’s sort of happening now that maybe wasn’t around even just a few years ago.

[00:10:55] Rocky Lalvani: So what’s happening now I think is the ability to share ideas, to test ideas, to really carve into niches and to be different. I mean, it’s easier than ever to start a business.

[00:11:06] A.J. Lawrence: Yeah.

[00:11:06] Rocky Lalvani: Right? It’s easier than ever to find a market. It’s easier than ever to do things. As I look back, it used to be that information was gold.

[00:11:18] Well today, information’s everywhere. Information isn’t the problem. It’s discerning what is good information, what does make sense. And then the ability to scale today, I think, is just so much more amazing than it’s ever been in the past. I mean, you can sit in your house and literally create products from a foreign country, have them shipped, create a marketing team like you do everything today, and it doesn’t even cost a lot of money.

[00:11:48] A.J. Lawrence: I was just talking with a friend. My first business, I had four developers. This was early ’90s, and each of the computers, I had to go into debt to get it. Each of the computers were $5,000, that we were using. Now, it is such a different concept and what you can do is different. So it is so much for fun.

[00:12:09] Given that this is so much further. Who are the type of customers you work with in Profit First?

[00:12:15] Rocky Lalvani: So I tend to work with clients who are high six figures into seven figures of revenue. So they know how to generate revenue but what they struggle with is keeping it. They always ask the question, Hey, I had seven figures of revenue. Where’s my money? And it’s a major struggle for all business owners, believe it or not.

[00:12:37] A.J. Lawrence: I’m someone who is very successful at getting to that seven figure, and then low and behold, numerous times things have blown up and I’ve been lucky to sell in the seven figures. But yes, keeping it, it is a whole different ball game.

[00:12:53] And yeah, I am very interested because I know my last business, it would’ve been much better just reading some of the stuff off of your site about how to keep profits. Would’ve majorly changed what happened. Looking at, cuz our audience really is this upper six to mid seven figure, when they come in they’re usually, like things are going, they’re seeing some room, or at least my experience. So, coming in to you, what normally happens through your program?

[00:13:24] Rocky Lalvani: So my first call with a client, we usually spend a couple hours together and I get to know them as a person. I get to know their personal and business goals. Too often when you talk to business people, they’re all talking about the business side of it.

[00:13:40] They never look at the person behind the business, so I look at things holistically. I want to know the person behind the business. I wanna know what’s happening in their personal life. And then we also look at the business life. So that’s the first thing is just understanding you. And the reason I do this is because let’s say I help you build this great business and your kids don’t know who you are, and your wife divorces you. Well, there’s your blow up right there, right? You built this business to support your family, and your family left you. What good was it all? I think it’s taking that bigger, bigger picture.

[00:14:14] The next thing we do is we dig into your finances, we look at your financials, and we figure out what’s going on. So I think one of the most surprising things that I found is within an average company, you may have different products and services, which of those products and services is actually giving you tremendous profit?

[00:14:35] And which of those products and services is costing you money? Most companies, and when I say most companies, I’m not talking about the guys we’re talking about, I’m talking about the companies in the S&P 500. They can’t answer that question. And if they can’t answer that question, how does the little guy answer that question?

[00:14:52] When you start to look at your business and you start to see, Hey, over here in this part of the business, this 20% of sales is actually the reason I’m profitable this year. This 80% of sales is just breaking even. Why am I wasting 80% of my time? It goes back to the 80/20 rule, right? If you can figure that out in your business, then you can work less, do less and make more. And that’s a big part of what we try and figure out within the business. And it takes time to figure that out.

[00:15:23] And then the next thing we do is we put systems and processes in to take the profit off the top. And to put money aside for you to pay yourself, cuz a lot of business owners are afraid to pay themselves or they don’t take an appropriate paycheck.

[00:15:39] And so we force them to take an appropriate paycheck and we force them to pay themselves and we build up cash reserves within the business because as you’ve said, every business is a roller coaster ride. Let’s build and get ready for the sucker punch cuz it’s coming. It’s just a matter of when and if you have cash reserves, you can deal with sucker punches.

[00:16:02] And so that’s kind of the main part of the process of what I do. I focus on the numbers. I find most business owners do what they love and what they love is not the accounting and finances.

[00:16:12] A.J. Lawrence: Yeah. It’s funny cuz I even had a little bit of a background and spend some time as an auditor and yet my own numbers are you know, when I was in my early twenties.

[00:16:22] But my numbers right now, it’s just like sometimes, I know I can read them if I spend the time, but I don’t want to. It’s interesting you say that because I fully agree and a lot of what I’ve read since I was able to sell my company, but not at its peak, at a lower amount, really is around that concept of like, I wasn’t, I was paying myself, but it was sort of after everything.

[00:16:46] And it’s interesting when you say about putting in system and processes. I actually think it’s discipline and when you put structures you can’t change. It actually removes some of the willpower concepts of discipline, so it makes it easier. For me it was, I used, in the back of my head, I used that what should have been going into my pocket on a more consistent, regular basis, and I still did really well. I mean, without a doubt.

[00:17:12] But I used a lot of what could have been more steadily put aside, both for the reserves and for myself for bright, shiny object chasing. And this is, unfortunately I’ve spoken with other entrepreneurs about this, and this is a weakness we have. It’s like I create one thing so therefore I can create a gazillion things.

[00:17:34] I like this concept you push of like, no, you do these first. If everything else happens, then sure, you can go play after. After you do your chores young man, you may go out. Do you find that often? It’s sort of I’ve noticed when I look at a lot of businesss. The money’s there, but they’re allocating it in ways that maybe not being value added, and that’s I guess a polite way of putting it, wasted.

[00:18:05] Rocky Lalvani: It is. I think that was one of the biggest surprising things about this business. I didn’t realize how big the accountability portion of what I do and the discipline portion of what I do for business owners was going to create results. And we see it all the time. Like I’ve got business owners that have been in business for 20, 30 years and they’re like after a year of working with me though, they’re like we’ve never had so much cash in all these decades. Like it’s incredible what’s happened. And a big part of it is, hey, we are not going to spend money just to spend money on every single shiny object. Before you buy the shiny object, we need to sit down.

[00:18:42] Remember, we had that two hour call. You told me X shiny object is not part of X. Why are we doing this?

[00:18:49] A.J. Lawrence: But it’s cool.

[00:18:51] Rocky Lalvani: Number one. Number two, it’s okay if we’re gonna do shiny object, let’s put the numbers to it. Does this make sense?

[00:18:58] And a couple months ago I was sitting with one business owner and he goes, Well, let’s open up a new location. I go, Okay, let’s run the numbers. And we looked at the numbers and he goes, Yeah, this is a sucky idea. Right? Because the numbers said so, but we keep thinking, Oh, we have to grow, we have to add, we have to do this. Why? Why do we have to put ourselves on a hamster wheel? I like to work less and make more, and that’s kind of what we figure out.

[00:19:23] How do we work less and make more? Stop chasing everything and just double down on what you’re good at, what’s profitable, what the world is telling you it wants, and go focus there and stop running around with your hair on fire.

[00:19:37] A.J. Lawrence: It’s kind of funny the way you say that because my main effort is marketing and I talk a unlovely game of do the foundation first or put the reps in first before you worry about trying to swing for a home run. I massacre metaphors, it’s my special skill. Really, when I see this from people like you, it’s like, Oh yeah, that’s right. I kind of kept trying to do cool things that would jump me ahead because it worked a couple of times, so therefore I keep doing it instead of like, Oh, that’s right. Incremental progress, directionally correct over time will gain me so much more than just a few wild swings.

[00:20:20] It’s just mentally it’s very difficult, I think, for a lot of us business owners to go, Oh wait, it’s not my magic. It’s my diligence that can make a business better.

[00:20:33] Rocky Lalvani: I think it just comes down to actually doing the basic math. You said X, Okay, let’s test your theory. How much can you sell this for? What is it gonna cost you to deliver it? And when we just sit down and we do the math and we look at things and we go, Well, what are we missing here? Oh, I forgot that we have to do this and this and this. Same thing with marketing, right? Everyone’s always like, How much can I spend on marketing? Well, what’s our return on marketing?

[00:21:00] Too often what I hear marketers say is, if you gave me $1 and I gave you a $1.50 back, you keep giving me a dollar, wouldn’t you? And I’m like, no, because if I give you a dollar and I get a dollar and 50 in sales, but it costs me a dollar and 20 to deliver it, I’m now losing money. And I think people don’t realize when you look at the equation, for every additional dollar you spend, depending on how profitable your business is, you might need $10 or $20 in revenue to justify that additional dollar spend. And people aren’t looking at it in that type of a lens. They think a dollar spent at dollar revenue, and that is not true at all.

[00:21:43] A.J. Lawrence: No, it’s what’s the free cash flow out of that? What’s the margin? What’s your support structure? What are these things that kind of come into play? I do like that everyone knows lifetime value of a customer, but there’s some really interesting mathematical equations and I bet given your finance, there’s financial versions of this, but if you want to go really geek out, you can isolate every aspect of a marketing effort and look at what that does compared to the overall value. So financially, yeah, I mean that would make so much sense. Just some of us need more help than others in following that.

[00:22:25] Rocky Lalvani: Yeah, I think for most business owners you need to understand what your break even is, right? Once you can clear your break even, you really start to get into the profit zone.

[00:22:36] But if you don’t know where those numbers are and what the break even is, or if most businesses build up too big a break even to begin with, and so you’ve really gotta be lean and mean, and we don’t do that as business owners. I mean, the biggest thing you see, and it’s kind of one of the things we talk about is, you sign up for all this stuff as a business owner.

[00:22:55] Oh, I signed up for this free software trial, I signed up for that. If you actually sit down and look at your expenses, you might realize you are not using half of what you’re paying for. You might realize that half of what you’re paying for is duplicated by something else, and so it’s just taking the time to clean out all of that excess spending.

[00:23:15] And if you’ve got employees, well, employees are basically incentivized to spend money. So they’re not incentivized to cut your costs. They’re like, Yeah, let’s do this. Let’s try this. And the next thing you know, especially as you get into seven figures, is money’s leaking everywhere. And if you don’t know where all those leaks are, that’s a problem.

[00:23:35] And if your employees don’t understand what it means to be profitable and how you generate profit, then they can’t be on the same page as you. Most business owners aren’t having the profit conversation with their employees. And they’re not showing them what’s actually involved.

[00:23:50] A.J. Lawrence: Okay, cuz I know that’s something I tried numerous times and I kind of felt like, as a business owner, I either opened the kimono too much or I shared stuff that really didn’t make too much sense. You know, one time, basically the P&L dumping it for everyone. All right, let’s go talk about this. And like people nitty gritting, like, why do we have $25 in coffee or whatever? What is the way you help entrepreneurs have that conversation with their team?

[00:24:19] Rocky Lalvani: So I think you have to have it appropriate to the specific role of the person, right? Instead of looking at the entire P&L, let’s look at one particular piece of it for the particular role or division that you are in. If this division is selling X product, what does it cost to produce X product? Where are we losing money?

[00:24:43] So, you know, especially in the trades, every time you make a mistake, one mistake can wipe out 10 jobs. And so, just being aware that one mistake is wiping out 10 jobs worth of work. Then how do we prevent mistakes? How do we prevent problems? And I think it’s just an overall awareness.

[00:25:05] The other thing is, if you think about it, most people are not financially literate. So you’re asking them to do something they don’t even understand, and that’s a problem. We are not taught money in school. I have an MBA and a Bachelor of Science in Economics. They don’t really teach you these skills.

[00:25:21] On top of that, money is emotional. So what baggage are these people coming to you with to begin with? Because if you think rich people are evil or business owners are greedy, your behavior is going to follow that. And you really need to be careful about all those things and making sure that people understand what’s going on.

[00:25:41] So it’s just more, I think of those kinds of conversations and then helping your employees understand how they build wealth. Once they see it for themselves in their personal, then they can start to see it for your business.

[00:25:53] A.J. Lawrence: I like that because, yeah, I do think having that conversation when it goes well, it really creates a lot more value in businesses. In the past, I know I’ve struggled in either doing too little, too much, or just kind of missing the target. And yeah, adds distraction from the overall effort. We’ll leave it there. Politics.

[00:26:20] As you’re doing it, you’re looking kind of now to move this more to sort of a work on the business, sort of looking at what the future is gonna bring as you kind of lower your focus on this, how are you looking to define what success in this process is gonna look like for you?

[00:26:37] Rocky Lalvani: For me, success is time freedom, first and foremost. How much time freedom do I have? Do I have the ability to control my day, to be able to do the things I want to? If I see an opportunity to go somewhere for a few days, can I go do that? Or am I constrained? Am I stuck having to do work? So number one is that. Number two is enough revenue. I think the biggest problem most people struggle with in, it’s the conversation, cuz I hang out with a lot of people who are highly successful and the question is, how much is enough?

[00:27:13] Like when you hit enough, it’s time to take a knee and enjoy the ride. Too often people don’t learn to do that. They keep chasing and chasing. Life is short, you know. Learn to take a knee, learn to say I have enough, and figure out what that is for you. And for everyone, it’s a different number.

[00:27:33] A.J. Lawrence: I take it for you enough is going to be able to travel and able to prepare for grandkids. That is good. Yes, Cuz I have a few teenagers myself and we’re looking at colleges so they’re not in yet, but yeah, kind of like no grandkids for a while, but yeah, I want that. Take your time getting there.

[00:27:56] Rocky Lalvani: And you know, you think about that you’ve got kids who are about to make, depending on where they go, a two or $300,000 decision. And nobody has sat down with them and said, Hey, here’s what these finances look like, here’s what the opportunity cost is, here’s what the reality of the situation is. And I think that’s why so many people and so many kids struggle with college debt and even the whole concept of college beforehand, because nobody’s having the money conversations.

[00:28:27] A.J. Lawrence: We can kind of walk through everything you do and I can go, Yeah, I did that wrong , which is always great when I have people like this on a guest because that’s the purpose of learning. I know I’m trying to have that conversation more and more of my family. Do I have private wealth backing? Do I get private wealth banking services? No, we’re not there. But do I live in Southern Spain and do we travel a lot in this? Yes, we are quite well off.

[00:28:57] So having that conversation, I’m finding it more and more important to have it. But do you work with the people in your program to how to articulate that? Because it’s a weird thing sometimes, especially as someone who came from middle class, aspirational middle class, but middle class background. This is different what we do.

[00:29:22] Rocky Lalvani: So I have these conversations all the time. The people I work with come from all different backgrounds. They come from lower economic, middle economic to growing up with wealth from the family, and then all of the baggage that comes with growing up with wealth as well. The problem is most people aren’t teaching their kids money.

[00:29:43] And that’s the conversation we have, and the way we do it is really simple. I can read all the books on golf I want, and I can watch all the videos on golf I want, but until I pick up a club and hit a ball, I’m never gonna learn to play golf. And so what I tell people is put money in your kids’ hands and let them screw up and let them learn and give them the responsibility to manage their money.

[00:30:10] And if you let them do that and you have honest conversations with them, then over time they will learn how to handle money. But nobody’s doing that. And most of these kids, they’re living off of your money, and so it has no value to them because it’s not theirs.

[00:30:28] A.J. Lawrence: Basically is a concept of how much they can ask, plead, beg, or push to get more. Not a question of what’s the intrinsic of value. When you say give it to them, are you meaning like their living expenses or are you talking about investments? What do you suggest?

[00:30:47] Rocky Lalvani: All of the above. All of it. So, you know, I think from a basic level, we gave our kids an allowance and we told them the rules with the allowance. Part of it was you give to charity. Part of it is you save for a time that’s so far in the future. You can’t comprehend it. And part of it is you spend. And so when we go to the store and they want a candy bar, it’s like, you have money, why you bothering me? You would be shocked at how quickly they stop spending their money.

[00:31:15] And then if they come to you and say, Well, I want this bigger item. Well great. What can we do that you can earn money? So you’re teaching them the entrepreneurial spirit. How can you serve the world with something of value so you can have money to get that larger item you want? It’s not, Oh, we can’t afford that, or you’re not worth it, or you can’t have it.

[00:31:34] It’s how are you going to be able to generate wealth or generate income so that you can have what you want. And learning that, so you’re teaching them the business skills as well, which regardless of whether they take over your business or they go do their own business or they get a W2 job, at least they’ve learned the skills of how to do that, and they’re no longer looking to you to hand the money. They’re learning how to do it themselves.

[00:32:00] A.J. Lawrence: That’s actually good how they can look about creating value. I mean, I buy, I show them things or I buy books, you know this and then, Oh, you gotta read this and try this. But yeah, I think a little bit more strictness.

[00:32:13] Rocky Lalvani: How’s that going?

[00:32:15] A.J. Lawrence: I have kids who can build beautiful programming stuff, but then like do anything with it. It’s like, wait, I just did the problems in the book, why do I need to actually think about? Yeah, so think there’s some more effort I need to put into that. How can people in the audience, if they’re interested in learning more, obviously your site, where should they go?

[00:32:35] Rocky Lalvani: So the best thing is to go to Profit Answer Man and everything that I do for my clients, I teach, there’s no secret sauce. There’s nothing hidden, right? It’s all out in the open. I give everything away, and I do that because I know that a lot of people just don’t wanna do it themselves. When they realize all the stuff they have to do, they’re like, can you just do this for me? Yes I can. But in the meantime, if you wanna do it yourself, everything I do, I teach, and you’re more than welcome to go do it yourself.

[00:33:03] You can do this yourself. It’s not that hard. It’s just that a lot of people don’t wanna do it. They prefer to do the things they love and I don’t blame them. You have a lot of different roles in the company. You wear a lot of different hats, especially as a seven figure business owner and some of the hats you just hate wearing.

[00:33:21] So outsource what you hate, right? Let someone else do it. Which is kind of that book right? Who, not how. Who can help me, not how do I do this. And that’s fine. I’m at that place in my life where that’s where I’m at. Just giving back.

[00:33:37] A.J. Lawrence: I like that. It’s this idea of a conversation. You know, it’s not, Oh, here, sign up for my course, blah, blah, blah, blah, or upsell or downsell.

[00:33:47] It’s like, let’s have a conversation. If that little conversation goes well, then we have a real conversation. Life and business, as I like to joke, those are usually the best conversations, especially if they’re late at night and with bourbon. But in this Covid age, with little less of that going on.

[00:34:05] I really do think there’s a lot to be said and more of a trusted hand to guide versus a course to do these 10 things, do these 12 things, so, trusted hand and support from your materials about doing that. That’s an interesting approach and something, I’m gonna be looking into it. I may bug you off camera about.

[00:34:29] Thank you so much for coming on the show, Rocky. I really do appreciate it. It’s a lot of fun to talk about ways to grow the company and know this and that, but the reality is, it is the numbers. And so much myself and a lot of my audience members when I talk with them, it is how to keep the money.

[00:34:49] We think, because we’ve made it in the past, it will always happen, but doesn’t quite work that way, surprisingly. I’m glad there’s people like you out there, and I’m glad, I think a lot of my audience will enjoy learning more about what you do, so thank you so much for coming on the show. I really do appreciate it.

[00:35:06] Rocky Lalvani: Thank you. Before I go, can I ask your audience a favor?

[00:35:09] A.J. Lawrence: Sure.

[00:35:10] Rocky Lalvani: All right. Hey, if you guys like A.J., if you like Beyond 8 Figures, if you found value with this show, do him a favor and go rate and review the show. Wherever you’re listening, say thank you. It means a lot to us as podcasters to get that feedback, and that’s the best way you can say thank you.

[00:35:29] A.J. Lawrence: Rocky, thank you so much. Yeah, it’s sad, but I’ve been thinking of how to do that . And you just did. In my show, it’s like I sudden I started, I’m like, Oh yeah, I should add that. So Rocky, thank you. And everyone, yes, please let us know. Let us know what you think, Rocky questions we can send him.

[00:35:49] And I really do appreciate this. Thank you so much.

[00:35:52] Rocky Lalvani: Thank you. It’s been a blast.

[00:35:54] A.J. Lawrence: This is gonna take me a while to really unpack a lot of what Rocky shared with us. I mean, such a giving guy. The insights were great , and I love that he’s looking at this as being sort of his writing off into the sunset phase. But two things that really stuck out sort of back in the early part of the episode where he’s talking about, keeping busy as an entrepreneur, going through the structure of using entrepreneurship to keep ’em from bad habits. There’s so much around how to look at that, but definitely the idea of building our own entrepreneurial schedule. I’ve seen, and I know for a fact when I stick with it, really helps me keep focus and get so much better results and stay away from bright, shiny object, which is my biggest weakness as an entrepreneur.

[00:36:46] But yeah, really that’s such a cool way of thinking about it and putting it, so I think it’s something we can take just books. I loved how he just sort of gestured back to all the books behind him. So if you’re listening to the podcast, yes, he was sitting in front of amazing bookshelf, full of amazing business books behind him, and maybe we’ll try and we’ll get this up on the youtube channel that is coming slowly but surely. And you know, you get to see some of ’em because there’s a lot of great stuff. But reading consistently and pulling out ideas that we can use in our business is just something that takes time, but it’s just repays again and again and again.

[00:37:31] So definitely really cool. And what more can I say? Go check out Rocky. Go listen to his podcast, the Profit Answer Man. And if you are needing his help, go reach out to him. Profit Comes First, is a great offer being, you know, Profit First Professional. It’s a great methodology and structure that I’ve been reading more and more about.

[00:37:55] And I know some people who actually use it and swear by it. And as things are picking up in my business, I think I’m going to be having a lot more conversations with Rocky in the future. So, go check out his podcast and reach out. We’ll have the links down below also. Thank you as always for listening to this episode.

[00:38:16] Check us out on the social media, beyond8figures.com to go subscribe to our newsletter. Choose the podcast host of your choice to listen to us. Check us out on the socials. We’ve been having a lot of great conversations with our listeners about what’s important to them, and we’ll definitely be bringing up how do they go about making sure that they’re maximizing their profit.

[00:38:42] So once again, thank you. Have a wonderful day, and I can’t wait to speak to you again.

[00:38:52] This episode of Beyond 8 Figures is over, but your journey as an entrepreneur continues. So if we can help you with anything, please just let us know. And if you liked this episode, please share it with someone who might learn from it. Until next time, keep growing and find the joy in your journey. This is A.J., and I’ll be talking to you soon. Bye bye.