How to Balance Growth & Profitability with Manny Skevofilax, Business Advisor at Portal CFO Consulting
In this episode of Exploring Growth, host Lee Murray welcomes Manny Skevofilax, business advisor at Portal CFO Consulting, to discuss the delicate balance between growth and profitability. Together, they explore the challenges entrepreneurs face, particularly in light of recent venture capital trends that prioritize rapid expansion. The episode advocates for a balanced approach that promotes both sustainable growth and personal well-being.
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Lee - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehmurray
Manny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mannyskevofilax/
Manny Skevofilax
00:00:00
You know, I try to present the information as emotionless as possible and just try to share with them that, you know, if you're going down this particular course of action that you've outlined, you're going to really reduce your chances of being able to attract further capital. And that's the part that really gets them. And because we don't want to get to a point where a complete standstill happens because those losses dried up the company's liquidity, and now you've got to go out and shop for more money, and you're going to find it's a challenge, right? If if you're showing losses.
Lee Murray
00:00:39
Something that can get lost very quickly in the pursuit of growing is profit. And today we're going to look at balancing growth with profitability. With my guest, Manny Felix, business advisor at portal CFO consulting. Welcome to the show, Manny.
Manny Skevofilax
00:00:59
Thanks for having me, Lee. Happy to be here.
Lee Murray
00:01:02
Yeah, this is a good conversation. I think I've talked about this once one other time on my podcast, and I need we need to be talking about it more.
Lee Murray
00:01:09
and I want to jump into that. But before we do, tell everyone about who you are and what do you do?
Manny Skevofilax
00:01:15
I am a business advisor. I help business owners maximize profits and overcome growth challenges. So I am working with all different types of business owners in different industries, helping them with the financial questions and, you know, difficult situations.
Lee Murray
00:01:31
Nice. Okay. So we we were talking about this, this idea of balancing growth and profit. And I want to just kind of jump right into it. I, I have this sort of like over the last probably 5 to 10 years, there's been a lot of VC money in the market and really pushing owners, entrepreneurs, founders to to prioritize growth over everything. And, and I've seen this in various industries. I have a client who's in banking, finance and sort of their nemesis is the Finn or the fintechs of the world or the Neobanks. And I've seen it firsthand through their eyes, where these sort of quasi banks, they're not banks because they don't have charters.
Lee Murray
00:02:17
You know, they are they are, you know, purporting all of the stuff to their users. They're doing everything they can just to onboard masses of users, but they don't have any good experience once you're onboarded. I mean, in fact, I think I tried to sign up for one of their, I think it was Chime or somebody just to see what the process was like, and it dropped off after like step three and it never got contacted again. But everyone said an account up. I was like, hey, don't you guys know you spent all this money on marketing and I'm not even an A customer yet. And I tried to be a customer. So you can see in these various different industries and various ways these companies prioritize just onboarding masses of freemium users and growth over growth, for whatever sake. And I think that that's a misstep. You know, I think you see a lot of these companies falling apart on the back end and not providing good experiences, not providing any kind of return for the shareholders.
Lee Murray
00:03:13
so in a, in an environment that has gotten very frothy and, you know, slowed down a little bit lately with growth, like, what do you have to say to those companies? What do you have to say about this idea of like prioritizing growth over everything?
Manny Skevofilax
00:03:28
I mean, some excellent points that you make. Lee well, you know, what is the purpose? You know, what was the outcome? You know, you spent all this time, this effort, this capital to go and grab, let's just say eyeballs or to your point, the freemium users. And then you never got to a point where you made any money. What was the whole point of the exercise? Right. You know the why. Right. And I think to your point, We just went through this, like really weird. Kind of like since 2007, 2008, since the last, you know, from the economic downturn piece, you know, excluding the Covid, but right where it was just I need to be a unicorn.
Manny Skevofilax
00:04:10
I need to go find $1 billion valuation. I need to raise money and, you know, profits be damned. Let me just get as many eyeballs and users as I can. And in my opinion, it seems that that might only work on companies that have a global, you know, total addressable market and, you know, eyeballs on tech because you can just it's not labor intensive to get them all quickly. Sure.
Lee Murray
00:04:35
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would I would argue too, that even in those with those business models that have a global, total addressable market, that that is a misstep because you really should start smaller than a global audience. You really should start with a smaller subset that you can test that this product is actually going to work. but it does make sense that that that would be, you know, one avenue that you could look to for, for prioritizing growth. so that begs the question of which companies should prioritize growth over profit, right? Like when you're looking out there.
Lee Murray
00:05:10
have you seen any companies that you would say, okay, you're not really making a lot of money, but it's okay to not make any money for, for this period of time.
Manny Skevofilax
00:05:20
You know, that's that's a tough question. I have spirited debates, let's call it, with some of my clients about that. You know, based on the, the education that I've received from teachers and mentors and, you know, big business families that I've worked with. You got to be profitable all the time is, is what I've seen. And it can really put a challenge on you as a business owner if you are losing money for any period of time. Right. And you know that that that profit is what makes it all work. That's how you attract those teammates, you know, your most valuable asset. That's how you are able to make the investments into the business that you need to grow. That's how you take care of your family and make your charitable donations to your community. So, you know, from my perspective, it's important to always be profitable.
Lee Murray
00:06:18
Yeah. And especially the family run businesses or the founder, led businesses where they they founded the company, now they're transitioned into CEO or some other, executive role, especially those companies, because they have the most at stake. they weren't transplanted there with, you know, some kind of, long term incentive. they aren't there just for the multiple or just for the, you know, to make to, to make a return on their investment, especially those. And you mentioned, having spirited debates. What I, I went to automatic. Yeah. Spirited debates. You mean shouting matches, which I'm sure you know, you probably have had at times. But what is that relationship like? Because I know you're probably working with a lot of CEOs and maybe even some internal CFOs. How how does that work? I mean, because I would I would want to think I know what that looks like. But like from your experience, how is it trying to take a spreadsheet, show it to an owner or a CEO and say, hey, I got bad news for you.
Lee Murray
00:07:25
You know, we can't do what you want to do.
Manny Skevofilax
00:07:28
You know, it can get pretty challenging. Like, you know, I try to present the information as emotionless as possible and just try to share with them that, you know, if you're going down this particular course of action that you've outlined, you're going to really reduce your chances of being able to attract further capital. And that's the part that really gets them, because we don't want to get to a point where a complete standstill happens because those losses dried up the company's liquidity, and now you got to go out and shop for more money, and you're going to find it's a challenge, right? If if you're showing losses.
Lee Murray
00:08:08
Yeah. So, you know, what what comes to mind is just the, the kind of 101 thinking of or maybe the fundamentals of business where you have a minimum viable product, you put it in the market, you get product market fit, and you start the process of growing and scaling so that you can prove you can validate that the market actually wants what you have at a greater scale.
Lee Murray
00:08:38
And so to me, I think that you have to be able to demonstrate, I think for most businesses, you have to be able to demonstrate, even if it's for a short period of time, that this is a viable, you can make a viable profit even if you don't actually make a profit during that time. You can sort of put it, put it on paper and show like, look, this is going to be profitable before you move to the next stage of scaling and whatever that may look like. And I think for both investors and owners and all the other stakeholders involved, I think that's very important, to, to have that piece done so that then as you look to grow, you look for outside money. you look for internal bootstrap cash for new strategies and plans, you know, playbooks that you can feel confident that you are saying, I'm not going to profit for the next six months or three years, but we know that we are going to profit at some sort of determined time because we we can scale what we have tested in this first phase.
Manny Skevofilax
00:09:45
I completely agree with your analysis. you know, we have enough runway where we can lose money for the next six months until we hit profitability, right?
Lee Murray
00:09:53
Yes. Yeah.
Manny Skevofilax
00:09:55
You know. You know, my gut tells me that years from now, it'll be in textbooks, that this period of time that we just went through, as you described, Lee, was a period of time where we were awash with capital and we had too much money chasing too few deals. And perhaps that solid analysis that you just shared kind of wasn't followed. It wasn't a priority one.
Lee Murray
00:10:19
Yeah. I think we you know, if you want to know about the future, you read about history in any kind of domain. And I think you're right. I think that it's it's funny how we can get away from the fundamentals because the fundamentals are boring. You know, people want to have the next shiny eye rocket to the moon kind of thing. Definitely. So in our in our conversation that we had prior to this, we talked a little bit about, you were telling me about how you you can map expenses to growth or profit and you can like look at expenses and ask, how is this leading us to profit or growth to take us through.
Lee Murray
00:10:54
Like kind of your thinking around that.
Manny Skevofilax
00:10:57
Yeah. So when I, you know, again, this is based on my experience with, my training, my teachers, my mentors. When you're looking at the performance of a company and you're trying to have that that spirited debate with, with an, you know, the executive or the business owner, you know, the topic comes up with expenses because it can be a lot faster to cut those expenses, to boost the profit, then it can to bring on the new revenue. Right. And and one of the exercises that I like to use is, hey, let's just take a look at the expenses together and let's try to put a line to show me how these expenses are a direct line to revenue. Right. And that's the real eye opener, because a lot of times you're not looking that closely at it. Right. Right now there's going to be some expenses, of course, that they're not going to want to mess with. But it's a real eye opener as to, you know, because I told him these are these are investments that you're making.
Manny Skevofilax
00:12:00
How do they lead to revenue?
Lee Murray
00:12:02
Are you starting with their salary?
Manny Skevofilax
00:12:05
Are you know that you might not be.
Lee Murray
00:12:08
Around very long?
Manny Skevofilax
00:12:09
No no no, no.
Manny Skevofilax
00:12:10
That can enter the conversation. Right? I mean, that's a great point you make. So based on my experience, every business, depending on its financial metrics, can afford to pay its owner. Let's just assume there's one owner. Keep it all nice and simple. Yeah. Based on that business's financial metrics, it can afford to pay Lee Murray $300,000. We can easily calculate that if you need $500,000 to live and you're taking $500,000 out of the company, because that's what you need to live, you're creating a challenge that is going to you is going to write. So yes, that does enter the conversation when couched, let's call it in an appropriate manner. Right?
Manny Skevofilax
00:12:51
Yes. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:12:53
That those those conversations have to be very, very interesting. because it's delicate. You know, you're talking about someone's money. And a lot of the smaller business is the personal and business money is somewhat co-mingled at the beginning.
Lee Murray
00:13:07
what are some of the major expenses that you see that you can point to? And, you know, you just see them all the time and you're like, hey, we really probably should get rid of this.
Manny Skevofilax
00:13:16
You know that the real hard ones are sometimes too much space.
Manny Skevofilax
00:13:22
oh, yeah.
Lee Murray
00:13:23
Real estate. Yeah.
Manny Skevofilax
00:13:23
Right.
Manny Skevofilax
00:13:25
sometimes too many employees. So you just kind of kept growing and growing and growing and you really weren't in tune with quote unquote utilization. Now you got too many people. And the way that pops up is you see your kind of year over year revenue only grew, Let's just say let's just say 5%. But that payroll expense went up 15%. And you're like, well, wait a minute, you know, why would you need all these payroll hours to just do a little bit more revenue this year? Right. So those are the kind of the big ones. And then this one is a very sensitive topic. It's the marketing expense, the bang for the buck.
Manny Skevofilax
00:14:02
Yes. It has gotten really huge with respect to, you know, online advertising and, you know, how can you.
Lee Murray
00:14:12
Money very quickly.
Manny Skevofilax
00:14:13
How can you measure it. Right. How sure it's okay to spend it as long as you're getting the appropriate return. Yeah. That you plan for.
Lee Murray
00:14:22
I mean, this is getting close to the business that I'm in and content marketing. but, you know, I'm the first to say, because I've watched it firsthand, that Google ads can be like playing in a casino. And they are the house, Right?
Manny Skevofilax
00:14:39
Well, why don't I?
Lee Murray
00:14:40
I think there's a lot of people that expect to see some class action lawsuits coming out of, you know, in the coming years because of all the money that's just been, you know, wasted. I think you could say a largely, same thing with Facebook and some other ad platforms. But, you know, marketers are still putting those dollars behind those ads and whether they're seeing, you know, profit or not.
Lee Murray
00:15:01
you know, this one I can speak to, you know, because that's the world I live in. I'd say on the B2C side, when you're trying to reach consumers, it's you've got to run ads because that's the only way you can get in front of, the masses of people, the masses being the, you know, the bigger swath of your audience. whereas B2B, you can literally build a list for very little money and go to work on calling those people, emailing those people, you know, stop them by their you can do whatever, but you know who they are. You know where they live, right? so it gets a little bit more the marketing expense is going to be, A taller order for the B2C companies right out of the gate, especially those companies that are have a product they're selling online. Right? for the B2B, you can cut that expense. In fact, I have I think I have an episode we did way back at the beginning where I talked to some other marketers.
Lee Murray
00:15:53
I had them on, and we said, can you grow a business without social media, without having any social media? And almost to the point of not having a website? And I would and I'd say, yes, you can. if you're B2B and if you're in manufacturing specifically, you know, if you're in these companies, you know, these, these, domains where you literally can build a list of who your targets are and go knock on their door, you can win business, you know, next week, depending on the sales cycle. So, you know, my advice to a lot of B2B for that first stage is don't spend money on marketing. Yeah, you need a website. You need to make sure your services are up there and make sure you know certain things are there, but you don't need all the marketing stuff that you're going to need in phase 2 or 3, where you're actually trying to reach people online and connect them, build a brand and, you know, have marketing lift a little bit of the revenue.
Lee Murray
00:16:48
so that would be my perspective on that marketing expense. I would totally agree with cutting it from the beginning. apart from some fundamental pieces. that's why when we come and try to help people, we try to come in in the second stage, you know, where, hey, you've validated everything. Now we want to scale it. We're going to need broader reach. So yeah, I mean, I was hoping that you're actually going to say that because.
Manny Skevofilax
00:17:11
That.
Lee Murray
00:17:11
That's what I would say too. They don't need that right out of the gate.
Manny Skevofilax
00:17:15
It's a sensitive.
Manny Skevofilax
00:17:16
Conversation. And and let me tell you, there's a lot of fear involved. You know, when you're when this business owner is, you know, seeing a ramp up in their revenue and it's not things are not panning out the way that they were expected. And you want to go into the customer acquisition costs and look around for savings. They're like, hey, wait a second, all right. You know.
Lee Murray
00:17:39
Yeah. it's got to be a delicate thing that you do because, you know.
Lee Murray
00:17:44
You're when you start to look at expenses pretty quickly, you get back to people. Yeah. and those people are attached to those expenses in one way or another. how do you guide those conversations? I mean, that would be a difficult thing to do, to say, well, hey, you paid me to come help you get more profitable. And unfortunately, you know, this is a hard pill to swallow. Probably.
Manny Skevofilax
00:18:04
Well, you know, we do a full blown financial statement analysis. That's what I was trained to do when I worked in the as a corporate banker. Right. So I started at the bottom of a bank and I went through a training program, great teachers and mentors. So that's kind of one of my competitive weapons. I do that with clients, and I tell them, this is the way the bank's looking at you. This is the way your investors are looking at you, and we're going to do the same thing. That way. There's no surprises. Yeah.
Manny Skevofilax
00:18:30
And and now, you know, by now everybody has figured out that you have to grow. The business environment is so different that everybody has recognized that. You know what? My gas electric bill, it's going up regardless. My insurance bills, you know, your commercial liability, your auto, all my payroll expenses, minimum wage laws. So they understand, right? They understand that they are they have to grow. But let's not go pile on this growth without doing that beautiful analysis that Lee just laid out for us at the beginning here. Let's make sure we got that. I like what you said. Minimum viable profit. Right. And then let's cook and cut it from there.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:13
Actually, I.
Lee Murray
00:19:14
Said minimum viable product because that's.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:16
MVP.
Lee Murray
00:19:16
That a lot of people talk about. It's like product market fit. Well. It's getting to product market fit. But I love what minimal viable profit.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:24
All right.
Lee Murray
00:19:24
I like.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:25
That. I thought that's what you said. You thought you weren't a viable product.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:29
And then you said you.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:30
That's all I missed. I might have misheard.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:32
You, but I thought that's what you.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:33
Said. No. Which you know. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:19:38
So I think that's that's a that's a trademark right there.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:42
Yeah.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:43
So you know, and once you once you show them. Right. It's not me, I'm the messenger. Once you show them, you know, this is what the financial statement is saying. When we're doing our competitive, our comparative analysis together, it becomes a little easier.
Manny Skevofilax
00:19:59
You know? Sure.
Lee Murray
00:20:01
Okay. So, you know, the financial piece of it, I think is there's some gray area, but mostly mostly it's black and white. It's more about relaying that information to the to the owner and getting their buy in. there's there's something else though, that you brought up that I thought was kind of an outlier to our conversation, but totally maps. And that is looking at the owner's mental health as a sort of marker for growth and profitability.
Manny Skevofilax
00:20:29
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:20:30
Tell me about that.
Manny Skevofilax
00:20:32
It's something that I just noticed on the Journey League that these business owners, they were lured, lurid. They're lured by, like the, you know, the siren song of this, you know, rapid growth. Nobody wants to go and say, I'm growing 10% this year. It was like, nah, I gotta grow 50%, 60, 100. And then I noticed that along the ride, you know, these people were like, it's under so much stress. It was turning them negative. Right. And and that negativity was now this was a positive person until they decided to undergo a rapid growth strategy. And then they started turning negative. So, you know, they would get like irritable. You found somebody that was real patient and they would get irritated at the drop of a hat. And and I found that and, you know, this is playing a role here. Yeah. And I would have to bring it up and say, wait a second.
Manny Skevofilax
00:21:25
You know, let's let's tread carefully because your health is the number one thing here. Yeah. And you know you're the leader. You know, you were a happy guy six months ago, and now you're, you know, getting irritated quickly because of these factors, right? So let's let's keep that in mind. How much can you handle the is the question I asked them. All right. Because you don't want to take that. You don't want to take that home either. No. Right. You don't want it at the office for sure. And you don't want to take it home.
Lee Murray
00:21:57
Yeah. You know, there's there's a switch that or transformation that has to happen with someone who founds a company and then and then has to, you know, build a team and become various different roles or positions as they move up. And they're leading the company. so that all has to happen naturally, whether you're growing 10%, 20% or 1000%, but getting fixed for, for whatever reason on this rapid growth or growth for the sake of growth, It's going to really test you beyond what you're already being tested as a person.
Lee Murray
00:22:33
and and I, I've seen it too. I think it can really change people for the negative, which is, is unfortunate, you know. it's it's it hits people various different ways. Why they decide that growth needs to happen for the sake of growth. whether it's investment or investors, you know, boards, other stakeholders, they're, you know, the car they want to buy, whatever. You know, I think it hits people different ways, but it's definitely not not good and can create a bad environment for everyone involved.
Manny Skevofilax
00:23:08
Yeah, that's very well said. It's it's something I make sure that I stress to them that you don't need this aggravation to. Let's just throw numbers around, you know, to go from 10 million, 5 million to 10 million and not make any more money. You don't need that aggravation. No.
Lee Murray
00:23:25
You Yeah. And the team that you build and bring along with that journey, they they don't want to have the fallout. You know, it'd be better for them to work for a different company in a better environment.
Lee Murray
00:23:36
Yeah. then have to deal with the environment you're creating unknowingly.
Manny Skevofilax
00:23:42
Yeah, because it wears you down if you're constantly, you know, scraping by, undercapitalized through this growth process, it can wear you down because it's repetitive. You're up against the same factors every day. I got to make this payroll in two weeks. The bills are doing 30 days. I just, you know, sold this to this guy, but he hasn't paid yet. Yeah, it's it's a grind and be a grind.
Lee Murray
00:24:08
Totally a grind. A lot of pressure. Yeah. so when, when one kind of last question that I had for you is when you're working with these companies, what do you see that are the essentials for increasing profit?
Manny Skevofilax
00:24:26
That's a great question. That's a great question.
Manny Skevofilax
00:24:29
That's what I do. I come with the question. Yeah.
Manny Skevofilax
00:24:32
So in my opinion, okay. In my opinion, based on my experience, we have to together we have to review how you go to market. So we have to come down to, you know, to one unit, if you're a manufacturer to the one unit, make sure that's profitable with all of our costs involved.
Manny Skevofilax
00:24:53
and calculated. And if you're a service company making sure that you have, you know, the right utilization. So I think those are the before we try to scale anything, we've got to make sure. Back to your first point in this conversation. We got to make sure that the little piece is profitable first.
Lee Murray
00:25:11
You know. So what would that just kind of broad brush here. What would that look like for a company like mine where we are kind of core offering is Helping, you know, founder CEOs and their marketing teams create content and distribute content against a strategy for growth. So, you know, let's say we will help them create a put a podcast together. but the intention is for it to drive new business and shorten the sales cycle. So that's our core offering. How would you how would you look at a business in a, in a service offering like that and, and sort of define like you were saying, like a unit cost or utilization.
Manny Skevofilax
00:25:54
I would sit down with you and I would have you walk me through a project, okay.
Manny Skevofilax
00:26:00
You know, what's it going to take? So you would first educate me and this is going to be a pleasant conversation. Say, you know, Manny, I need, you know, I need two people that are going to work this many hours to hit this outcome. Yep. And then, I'm going to have X amount of overhead involved, and we're going to boil that down to a per project basis. And then I'm going to have my profit margin in here. So we're going to do a simple like cost accounting exercise because I like to do everything very simply. That's how I was trained. No you know no complexity. We'll get everything in there. Sure. And then you're going to tell me how do I grow? Okay. So to do these two people at least firm, plus, Lee, the three of you can handle five of these a month. Okay. Now how do you handle the six, seven and eight. That's the one you know, do you need one more person.
Manny Skevofilax
00:27:03
Do you need two more people. How many more podcasts do we need. Because it's not like that. One new hire on Lee's team is going to be able to handle this to say two more podcasts. Maybe it's one and a half right.
Manny Skevofilax
00:27:18
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:27:18
So you're looking at the people, you're looking at the tools, the software, the overhead, you know, and it's total. And breaking that down by, kind of per retainer or per ongoing project.
Manny Skevofilax
00:27:31
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:27:32
Yeah, I like it. Yeah. That's awesome.
Manny Skevofilax
00:27:35
Well that's fun.
Lee Murray
00:27:36
Yeah, it is. I mean, and I think it's, I think it's fascinating the work that you do, you know, it's it's very different than the work that I do. And so it's fascinating because I would be completely lost in the spreadsheets that you are in every day. but I love the result that comes from those spreadsheets and that thinking, because profit, you know, thinking about this analogy of, you know, the weather cooled off and I want to build a fire and, and this is just the way my brain works.
Lee Murray
00:28:06
I don't know why, but I'm building the fire and I'm, I'm a I'm like, liking to building business. And I'm like, well, you gotta, you know, the little sticks first, and you gotta have your Tinder and you gotta build up slowly. The fundamentals of building a fire is very similar to building a business. And and the fundamentals like what you want is this big roaring fire very quickly. But you don't realize that you don't want to build a fire. What you want to do is build something that's going to at some point, hopefully in the near future, produce heat, because heat is what allows you to cook meat or, you know, roast marshmallows or whatever. The heat is the profit. It just came to me this analogy of like, we don't want a fire, we want heat, we don't want revenue, we want profit.
Manny Skevofilax
00:28:58
I'm smiling because I think it's awesome what you just said. I've never heard that before.
Lee Murray
00:29:03
Yeah I've never heard it either. I just said it.
Lee Murray
00:29:05
It was in my brain this whole time.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:06
So you know one.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:07
Thing I wanted to add was I did work with a creative agency. I work with a few of those over the years, and the one guy who was a CEO, and he came to me and, you know, he it.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:16
Wasn't.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:16
Performing, you know, he did his calls and stuff like that, wasn't performing. And when I looked at it, I said, where's your time being charged in these engagements?
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:27
Yeah.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:28
And he said, it's not. I said, well, you've just turned your salary into overhead. And it became very simple. And the light bulb went off in his head and he just, you know, thanked me profusely. And he was got a little irritated at himself. Right? Yeah. It's like I've been doing this for like ten years. Yeah. And and it's sometimes it can be that simple.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:50
You just. That's right.
Manny Skevofilax
00:29:51
You got so much going on as a CEO. You didn't think about baking this cost into your pricing proposal.
Lee Murray
00:29:58
Yeah. That's right. And I think when you start doing that, you realize that you're undervaluing yourself in the market and you have to then reassess your market at the reassess who is going to buy the service for what it's worth, and what is that value that I'm actually bringing. So you have to go through this other analysis that has to happen, on the back of the numbers. Making sense? which is where I come alive. I love the, the other analysis of, you know, growth. But yeah, it has to be not for the sake of growth. It has to be for the sake of profit. So this has been great. This has been great. Thanks for for coming on and having this conversation.
Manny Skevofilax
00:30:34
It's my pleasure I enjoyed it.
Manny Skevofilax
00:30:36
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:30:37
All right. So if we want to send people your way where do we send them?
Manny Skevofilax
00:30:39
Yes. My website. Portal CFO. Portal CFO. Com and I got a lot of great information there. I've been blogging for a long time, so.
Manny Skevofilax
00:30:50
Oh, nice. I got a cool, searchable blog, so if you got something on your mind, you just go in there and, and, you know, type your search term in and, you know, you'll probably get 4 or 5 articles on your topic pop up.
Lee Murray
00:31:01
That's awesome.
Manny Skevofilax
00:31:02
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:31:04
Okay. Cool. Yeah. We'll we'll put that link in the description. What about are you on LinkedIn?
Manny Skevofilax
00:31:07
I am on LinkedIn with my long name, Manny. Felix. That's how you can find me there.
Lee Murray
00:31:13
Yeah, I love it. yeah. I had such a hard time pronouncing, and I even wrote.
Manny Skevofilax
00:31:18
It out adequately.
Lee Murray
00:31:19
And I pronounced the phonetically wrong, so.
Manny Skevofilax
00:31:21
You know, I.
Manny Skevofilax
00:31:22
Wanted to mention that I wrote a book too. I was very blessed. Yeah, I, I, I wrote a book, it's called Ultimate Profit Management. It's available on Amazon. And I felt like I kept seeing the same movie over and over again. Lee about, you know, what differentiated the the successful business owners from the ones that were failing.
Manny Skevofilax
00:31:44
And I feel fortunate that I was able to put the lessons in there. The blueprint that I was taught about, you know, how to stay profitable was you're trying to grow that business.
Lee Murray
00:31:54
I love it. Yeah. I have to imagine all the companies you sat down with and looked at them over and over. You go through your analysis and you have to see all kinds of patterns. So it'd be amazing to read that book and see those patterns that you saw.
Manny Skevofilax
00:32:06
Yeah. I've been very blessed.
Lee Murray
00:32:08
That's awesome. Well thanks again. And this has been great.
Manny Skevofilax
00:32:11
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Lee I enjoyed it.