Profit First in Changing Times with Craig Minter
During our April Facebook live session, we had the pleasure of meeting Craig Minter from Mints CD Consulting. Craig is a CPA accountant and Certified Profit First Professional, based in Sydney NSW. Craig was one of the first PFPs in Australia.
Profit First Australia CEO Laura Elkaslassy recently sat down with Craig to discuss all things Profit First.
We hope you enjoy watching. Thank you again to Craig for being with us and we’ll see you all next month for another Facebook live.
Cash is king, it is your life blood of businesses and more so now, than ever. — Craig Minter
What made you become a Profit First Professional?
l always like to educate and learn new things and I like reading books. I read Mike’s earlier books and then came across Profit First. It just resonated with what I had been experiencing with the clients I was working with at the time and that even my own business and I basically started implementing right away.
Through reading the book I learned about Profit First Professionals and I knew I could definitely help some people out with this. So I joined as a PFP. I wanted to learn more than what was in the book. I wanted to optimize it with my own business. Everything evolved and my business changed as a result of diving into the Profit First world.
What are you currently doing with clients when it comes to Profit First? How do you work with them, and what is different?
I work with business owners helping them build and implement million-dollar profit plans. I bring profit to the forefront of the business plan and ensure growth in revenue also results in growth in profit to be able to distribute to the owners.
Has COVID-19 changed anything about the way we work as Profit First Professionals?
The way that I’ve been working with clients hasn’t necessarily changed but it has brought a renewed focus and attention to the key areas and driving the messages that we’ve always been talking about managing your expenses, keeping the business sustainable and paying yourself.
I’m working with clients and advising that they don’t need to make panic decisions. We are working together to get a good understanding of the cash in the business, as this is the lifeblood of the business. Then we do the most to protect that and then we can make really educated decisions and forward planning and thinking based on knowing those numbers.
It’s times like these that the Profit First methodology and thinking and it’s in its the mindset that is behind it really comes to the front.
Tell us about your cashflow tool
I use a cash flow tool that is very centric around the whole profit first methodology and the different bank accounts. The tool allows us to predict future figures based on what we know about the business as usual activity versus different scenarios of varying revenue. This is really helpful in the current climate, as we can get this information fairly quickly and then we can create a plan based on those scenarios.
What are you currently doing with profit first in your own business?
I started Profit First implementation when my business was very small. I learned a lot of overtime, from making the percentages too high and not sustainable. So I recommend my clients take an incremental approach. Also change my business model, which had some challenges, revenue dipped and I had to reassess. My business is growing slowly in a sustainable and organic way. I’ve also changed other aspects of my business like getting paid upfront. In the current climate, I’m ensuring that I’m providing more and more value to clients to stay relevant. I’ve been encouraging all clients to be revisiting all expenses and working out if its an essential cost that’s the lifeblood of the business or is there a negotiation or deferral opportunity to keep more cash in the business in challenging times.
Originally published at https://profitfirstaustralia.com.au.