How Profit First Can Change Your Life with Clay Hantz

Show Summary

On this episode with Clay Hantz we follow the remarkable journey of a small business owner of a Brazilian jiu jiutsu academy who was on the verge of giving up after 24 months of an average income of a $100 a month, it was clear he was going to fold the business.  By chance he discovered Profit First while exercising with a friend and within 11 months he experienced growth that has resulted in a personal income of over $7000/month, plus profit, plus money reserved for taxes. Welcome to episode 139 of the Profit First Podcast!

Our Guest

 

I’m a 31 year old Sagittarius.

Just kidding. I really am 31 and I live in West Texas. Odessa, Texas. It’s a good town with a lot of problems. Folks are gritty and work their ass off for every dollar they have. The economy is oil & gas based so, when the price on oil crashes, so do people’s employments. Crime, on the other hand, goes up.

Born in South Dakota but, I’ve lived here for twenty six, some odd years. I home schooled in middle school and was lucky enough to have a dad that saw an athletic ability but no outlet. They compromised, I guess, and I attended a private high school. I wound up with a football scholarship to a Southwest Minnesota State University.

Man, that place sucked. I had zero social skills. Zero time management skills. Zero money management skills. Hell. My parents leased a VCR. I did not apply myself and did nothing but do things I wasn’t allowed to proverbial Parenting Iron Fist. (Partied Hard AF) I failed a class that I literally just had to show up to pass. But I played football! I didn’t even like football. (different story)

Got injured playing football, had surgery and was told I would never play a competitive sport again. *SMASHED DREAMS*

Two years later, I was working in a warehouse doing mindless crap around people I couldn’t stand and getting paid dirt. I started training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu & MMA at the end of 2005. Through training and competition, I stopped being a bag of shit.

I loved it. So much so that I got a job paying less, doing the same thing in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area just to have better training opportunities. The public high point of my career was fighting on a Nationally Televised card for, at the time, the #2 MMA organization in the world, competing for their 155lb Title.

I lost, by the way. Horribly.

I moved back to Odessa in 2013 as an outside salesman making a nice chunk of change. (No idea how I got this job.) Quit it within 2 months and opened up Vagabond Martial Arts & Fitness with zero experience, a $1700 hand out and some mats that were on loan from a dear friend.

I started a business broke as hell. Within two years, I had fourteen students. FOURTEEN! I was doing side work like shoveling rocks, laying sod, mowing lawns just to pay our light bill. I paid bills and had a ZERO dollar income for 4 months. My lease was up in a couple of months and I would get a job. I was lucky to own my vehicles and property. I was on government assistance for everything and tired of being broke.

I was running with my friend that was training for an ultra-marathon and he was listening to the Pumpkin Plan while we ran 15+ miles. I took $30 in change out of a jar that we tossed our spare in and bought the book. I read it and was skeptical. I was closing the gym in two months.

In March 2016 I made $200. The April-June  I saw significant increase. I started working closely with clients and I made a little over $400 in personal income. The gym was growing but, I was still broke.  When you aren’t making anything for a quarter of the year. $400 will make you cry.

So, I invested half of it in an automated billing company. Ya just can’t do it all. This allowed me to focus on things I was good at. I spent $30 on Profit First.

Auto-billing made it easy, passive aggressive way to cut pumpkins. I grew a bit more since changing my focus and I stayed at around $400 for another 2 months before I went all in on the Pumpkin Plan. Cut pumpkins, raised prices, catered to my spenders and loyal clients and doubled my income. Holy crap.

*Insert Profit First*

I was sold. I cried like a baby when I heard your story about your daughter and the piggy bank.

After applying PF to my business and my personal income, I have grown from 18 students to 92. I’ve made my daughters part owner’s of a profitable business at ages 4, 2 and, brand new. I was almost  IMMEDIATELY able to get off of ALL government assistance and had money to buy my wife and kids birthday and holiday gifts at the end of this year, pay cash for our midwife, pay taxes early and, an Arkansas Bear hunt.

Guest Links

Corporate Partners

Receipt-Bank – Software and service to make the gathering, storage & processing of bills, receipts and invoices as easy and as cost effective as possible for businesses.

Nextiva – VOIP phone providers for small businesses.

Fundera – Single source online funding for entrepreneurs. Also offers an adviser program for CPAs, bookkeepers and business coaches.

Fundbox –  The simplest and fastest way to fix your cash flow by advancing payments for your outstanding invoices.

Xero– Accounting software with all the time-saving tools you need to grow your business. Xero is always secure and reliable and our experts are here to support you 24/7.

Comments

3 thoughts on “How Profit First Can Change Your Life with Clay Hantz”

  1. Incredible episode Mike. Wow. Clay invested in himself at every stage and automated everything he could. The returns he has seen are showing the outcome of that automated discipline. Clay’s clarity on his WHY drives his commitment… so cool.

  2. Mike and the Crew,

    Thank you so much for allowing my to share a little bit of my story with you.

    Speaking with you was MOST definatley one of the coolest moments of my life.

    Thank you for putting your life on paper and allowing others to learn from your failures & triumphs.

  3. Nice to hear, for sure.

    I look forward to sharing my victorious story at the end of this year. After over 35 years in biz, I am ready for profit!

    Steve

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