Episode 166: The Benefits and the Clear Money Mindset Brought About by Profit First By Cory Boatright, coach and real state expert
The Profit First REI Podcast
March 23, 2023
David Richter
Summary:
Have you ever felt guilty for taking money out of your business? That guilt is what keeps many entrepreneurs from taking the profits they’ve earned to the point of living deal-to-deal Our guest today felt the same, even after he implemented Profit First.
Cory Boatright has been an entrepreneur for most of his life, having ran or been directly involved with almost forty different companies. He is also a coach, author, and real estate expert, and his vast knowledge is going to be a treat for new and veteran entrepeneurs alike.
Cory joins us today to talk about the emotions and mindset behind taking profits from your business and the importance of understanding your finances and how it can improve your life! Join us!
Key Takeaways:
[00:43] Introducing Cory Boatright
[02:15] On Profit First
[04:40] Cory’s Entrepreneurial Journey
[10:29] On His Mindset in Transitioning Into His Business and Profit First
[15:16] The Entpreneur’s Tendency to Avoid Finances
[20:37] The Benefits and the Clear Money Mindset Brought About by Profit First
[29:30] Advice for Somebody Who Wants to Implement Profit First
[34:47] Connect with Cory
Quotes:
[12:23] “It [isn’t] until you really [start] to consider Profit First’s way of thinking…that, first off, it’s okay to pay yourself first. Now that’s the very first thing that was a hard hurdle for me to get over.”
[28:53] “Profit First allows you to have organization [in] your business in a way that gives you consistency.”
[33:21] “You have to have structure. Profit First is one of the first ways to do that in your finances. Yeah. Which is like the heartbeat…of the business.”
Connect with Cory:
Learn Wholsaling with Cory: www.coryscoaching.com
Invest in Multifamily Apartments or Self-Storage: www.investingcapitalgroup.com
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcription:
Cory Boatright:
It wasn’t until we really started to consider profit first way of thinking. Yeah. I really think it’s a way of thinking. Yeah. Um, that, okay. First off, it’s okay to pay yourself. Yeah. First. Now that’s, that’s the very first thing. That was a hard hurdle for me to get over.
Outro:
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a Profit First approach. This is the Profit first for re e i podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
David Richter:
If you’ve ever felt bad about taking money out of your business, this episode is for you. I interview Corey Boatwright, who has been an entrepreneur for the last literally 40 years. And he talks about when he first started Profit First, feeling bad, that he could even take money out of his business and felt selfish. And if you are battling that, or if you’re like, Hey, I’m very confused. I have no idea what to do with my money and I never want to think about it, he also goes into the emotions behind that as well too. And what Profit First Life was before and after Profit First. So that’s where I wanna make sure this just helps you a ton and it helps you uncover some of these things if it can just make your life better and give you some hope. Thank you for listening and get ready to go. Hey, so this is David Richter, and here is Corey Boatwright, a good personal friend of mine, someone who I look up to, and also he’s kept me grateful for a long time. This guy is, uh, he’s got a lot of good stuff, a lot of great content. And, uh, we talked about a little bit in the introduction of what we talked about here today, but I want to know, I want you as the listener to get to know Corey on a personal level during this podcast because of all the stuff that he’s done in real estate. I mean, like, he’s authored books. He’s helped a ton of people in the coaching world. He’s done a ton of transactions. He is like a short sale cane. He’s done multi-family syndications. He’s got his own the REI Profits Master Series podcast. Man. Corey, it is an honor to have you on today.
Cory Boatright:
Hey, I appreciate you having me on, David. It’s, uh, it’s exciting to be here. I hope I can provide value to your listeners.
David Richter:
Oh, I know you will. And I know also as well too, you’re a big profit first fan. I mean, like, not only has he read it, he’s implemented it and how many years going on now implementing?
Cory Boatright:
So we really didn’t start implementing Profit first till I would say, after my thyroid cancer and end of 2012. Uh, so I really had to start looking at things in a, from a different lens.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, up to that point we had another si we had another third party accounting, um, you know, and they were kind of handling everything, uh, from a corporate structure and, um, we just really were kind of basing things on a more of a corporate level. And you know what, that really kind of means, not really, uh, looking at the Profit First model.
David Richter:
Right, right.
Cory Boatright:
So, uh, we were putting a whole lot, almost everything back into the company.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
And, uh, had a significant short sale business back in those days. This was around the, you know, 2009, 10 version days.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
I got thyroid cancer in it 2012. But praise the Lord after a thyroidectomy, no remission. So super grateful for that. Uh, and it’s been, you know, years, uh, since, uh, any, any kind of issues there. So we started to look at it after that because, uh, made big changes. You know, big made big pivots in my business. Uh, short sales was kind of coming to its end, if you remember that.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
About 2011, 12 was coming to, uh, its kind of end of its heyday and we had a good run for three or four years there. And then, you know, we had to make some pivots. And then of course I was on the road traveling. I had a large info, info marketing business speaking in many stages all around the country. We had a large software, uh, business for short sales. We had a consulting business for short sales. We had a senior loss mitigator that used to work for, uh, one of the big banks that, uh, was working for us. And so we were doing short sales for other clients. Uh, so it was, it was a pretty large business and I had a lost mitigation business. So we just had a lot of things going on and made some big pivots after that happened to me in my life. I couldn’t really do much for about three months. I had to get off the road. I had to cancel a lot of speaking gigs and I had to make some decisions too, on what was really important. And once I made those pivots, uh, David, that involved really taking back over, um, more of the financing and uh, looking at what we were really doing with the money. And that’s when Profit First started to become more of an obvious thing that we need to consider.
David Richter:
Yeah. So that’s why if you’re listed to this, he’s someone who’s practiced it for a long time. But let me even go back a little further before we talk about Profit First. What got you started off as an entrepreneur? Like when did that start? What did you start doing? Like, can you just tell how that hu got started? Cuz you’ve done a ton just in the, in the time that you just talked about that little window right there of time. So like when did it all start?
Cory Boatright:
Right. So I’m 46, uh, today and, you know, I have been an entrepreneur as long as I can remember.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
You know, my mother and I used to, my mom’s getting ready to turn 80 in uh, June and I’ll be 47 in June too. Uh, but my mom and I were joking around the other day cuz every Sunday my mom and I spent a couple hours together. We hang out, we either go to church, we go have breakfast, we go hang out.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Been doing it for years and years now and it’s been a such a huge blessing to be able to do that. And we’re talking about, you know, how whenever I was very young, I’m talking like eight years old, um, I would, uh, you know, have everybody in the playground coming around. I was, uh, selling these like glitter pencils, uh, for a dollar and, uh, <laugh>. So that’s eight years old. I started to be an entrepreneur and then later on in life I started selling five for dollar candy bars. Uh, got in trouble with the principal for doing that because I sold too many. Actually had some, uh, parents were getting onto ’em cause I was taking the kids lunch money cuz I was giving them such good deals on candy bars. Such a funny story. Oh,
David Richter:
That’s great.
Cory Boatright:
Um, so yeah, <laugh>, uh, and then that kind of prolonged into, um, if you remember this, David, I don’t know if you do or not, but there’s these things called transformers and gobos.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And these were pretty important, uh, toys growing up. And so I would, uh, get involved with barter and trading, uh, toys. And then I got involved with, uh, baseball cards and football cards in Memorbilia. Uh, and I started to really get involved with that, memorize the Beckett, which is not an easy thing to do. Um, when I say memorize and memorize the cards, that really meant the most back then. Right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And I had, you know, Jordan’s rookie card from 86 Flair. You know, I had, uh, Ken Griff Jr’s NI 89, uh, upper deck, rookie card, and still remember this stuff. Now I still have over a hundred thousand of these cards. Uh,
David Richter:
Wow.
Cory Boatright:
Which is pretty crazy to save them for years.
David Richter:
That’s great.
Cory Boatright:
And so I didn’t, you know, got involved with that. And then, uh, that prolonged into, uh, you know, just figuring out a way to start businesses online. And so as I started businesses online, I, uh, went through almost 40 different businesses.
David Richter:
Wow.
Cory Boatright:
Uh, if you believe that, all kinds of, just the craziest sayings you can imagine. I was a domain broker. Um, I had almost 700 domains at one time, uh, which is pretty crazy. The highest one I sold was, uh, yado.com for $10,000. So one letter off Yahoo. Um, you know, and bought these things for like, I think back in the day, like $10 or $12 and just crazy stuff. And then I got involved with, um, jewel Way and just everything you’d imagined. I sold Kirby backing cleaners door to door. So, I’ve always just involved with sales and marketing.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And so the question about entrepreneurs, it’s just been in my blood to barter and trade. And after all these different businesses, I only had two of them succeed. One of ’em was a plasma TV business
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
That I sold, grew it up to millions of dollars and I sold it. And I, and then the other one prolonged into real estate. And the funny thing is the people that were buying the plasma TVs, and if you remember this or not, these TVs when they came out, David, were like,
David Richter:
Yes,
Cory Boatright:
20,000, $30,000. Okay. And I was selling these, uh, I was selling these on eBay. And then I got involved with selling ’em on an AV website, uh, audio video, electronics website. And, uh, the people that were buying these TVs and buying these screens and all this were affluent people. They could afford it.
David Richter:
Yeah
Cory Boatright:
And so I would be able to talk with them, have a personal kind of relationship, build rapport and say, you know, how are you able to afford this? And what do you think the number one thing that they said on how they were able to afford TVs like this and high electronics.
David Richter:
They were in real estate, probably
Cory Boatright:
They were in real estate.
David Richter:
Yeah, there you go.
Cory Boatright:
They were in real estate. So I knew I had to get involved with real estate. Um, the challenge is, I dropped outta high school when I was 16,
David Richter:
yeah
Cory Boatright:
So I only had a G E D. And um, so I didn’t really have anything to fall back on. And so I really believed that I had to go through some course, I had to be, get some kind of designation, you know?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
I had to spend years and years to be able to Bob buy a house. It wasn’t until I found a found a mentor that showed me the ropes.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
So I got involved with, with, uh, bird dogging and then wholesaling and then rehabbing. And then finally I kind of stumbled my way into short sales and rest was history after that.
David Richter:
Okay. So it sounds like that mentor was pretty important in your life getting and running.
Cory Boatright:
Very Important.
David Richter:
Um,
Cory Boatright:
He was to,
David Richter:
To get there. What year was that around like when you first started? Cuz I know you were doing
Cory Boatright:
Yeah, so I sold my business, I wanna say right in the early two thousands. I wanna say
David Richter:
okay
Cory Boatright:
It was around 2003, 2002, 2003. So
David Richter:
Yeah
Cory Boatright:
When I sold my plasma TV business.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, we were doing pretty good. We had government relationships with the auctions. So we win these, we win these bids from the government and
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
They’d buy 30 TVs at one time.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
So we had a lot of these po orders that were all lined up, which was like gold. And so when we sold it off to our, the new buyer, um, you know, he had a lot of stuff coming and, um, so it was like 2002 or 2003, something
David Richter:
Like that. Well then fast forward 10 years later and you’ve got the short sale business, you’ve got a lot of things rolling in the real estate world and you’re doing the education. So then let’s talk about that journey there. Why did you switch?
Cory Boatright:
Yeah.
David Richter:
Or why did you think you needed to switch from like that corporate side of like, okay, now I’ve ran some businesses, now I’ve done that in like going more towards a profit first model. So what was that mindset going through that time?
Cory Boatright:
Well, definitely, I mean, when you are running a business, I mean, this was, this wasn’t a small business. I mean, we had almost 5,000 users paying, um,
David Richter:
Wow.
Cory Boatright:
Nine, $9 a month. We had, uh, for about the first six months, a thousand dollars to $1,500 set per customer. Um, it was a pretty large business, you know, um,
David Richter:
yup
Cory Boatright:
And just a lot of money coming in. And so you have big, your payrolls growing, your every, your expenses are growing and, uh, you’re putting a whole lot of money back into the company. But
David Richter:
yeah,
Cory Boatright:
Your, you kind of just, you’re just kind of taking some distributions here and there and there’s really just not any major organization to put an emphasis on what you need, what you’re,
David Richter:
right
Cory Boatright:
What you’re able to afford. You just kind of dip from this bucket that has, you know, hopefully has money in it.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, so you can pay your bills and, you know, things like that. And so, uh, it was just really an unorganized system, you know. And it was complicated too. Like, uh, it was hard to, uh, you know, maneuver everything. I mean, really, we would just have p and ls that came in from an accountant and we’d put money back in and mean, I had a partner at the time and we would, you know, we put this money back in and we’re just growing the business. I think for the first year we didn’t take out a single penny in the business.
David Richter:
Oh, wow.
Cory Boatright:
Um, and just let it continue to grow up. Um,
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
So thank God, because when I sold my business, I had a little bit of money, um,
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Put aside there. But, you know, it wasn’t until you really started to consider profit first, uh, way of thinking.
David Richter:
yeah
Cory Boatright:
I really think it’s a way of thinking, um, that, you know, it’s okay. First off, it’s okay to pay yourself.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
First. Now that’s, that’s the very first thing that was a hard hurdle for me to get over.
David Richter:
Okay. Um, talk about
Cory Boatright:
That be Well, I think it’s mentally, you know, it was one of those things where you feel selfish in a way
David Richter:
mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Cory Boatright:
Like, you’ve gotta pay all your other people, you gotta pay everybody else before you pay yourself.
David Richter:
Sure.
Cory Boatright:
And, you know, there is, um, some romance to that in terms of, you know, making sure that you are kind, making sure that you are not greedy. Making sure, you know, there’s that side of it, but there’s the other side. If we all know, you know, on a plane <laugh> where they say, take off your mask, put it on you first, not your baby. Every person I ever met in my life would put it on their baby first.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And I think that’s kind of like the way of thinking profit first by putting the mask on yourself or, you know, putting it on your baby first is kind of all the other ways everybody else teaches you.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
And it’s just a hard, it’s something you have, it’s a mental block that you have to say, wait a minute, if I don’t put it on me first, I can’t help others.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
I can’t help others, you know?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
If things don’t work out here, you know, I can’t help others. And another person told me that you can’t give somebody else a drink when you have a hole in your cup.
David Richter:
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Cory Boatright:
I thought that was a really good way of thinking about it too.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And so I think many people that don’t practice profit first, they have a holy cup, they a hole in their cup and they’re just leaking out all kinds of profit essentially. And it’s going places that they’re probably not even where it’s going. Some of it’s going over here to overhead, some of it’s going to payroll, some of it’s going here. But until you get a new cup <laugh>, which is the Profit First model, you’re not gonna be able to really handle and run a business the way responsibly and also take care of yourself and your family.
David Richter:
No, that’s really good. I love that you talked about that big hurdle for yourself like that, because I think you hit the nail on the head for what a lot of people Oh, especially, I would say in our circles too. Cuz we run in a lot of giving groups, you know, where the leaders are givers, the other people are givers. It’s like, so this line of thinking, it’s like, is it okay to do that? Like you even said, is it, it is okay to pay yourself, you know, like, and from the business. And I think people just need to hear that message. So that was really good. What other things did you find as a roadblock when, you know, before starting it? Like why do a lot of people, I think you even touched on it, you said you didn’t have a system really around the finances and not even around the finances, it was more corporate. Correct.
Cory Boatright:
Right.
David Richter:
And it was more of like, and you said it was complicated. Do you feel like that’s why most people shy away from the finances and like, don’t wanna look at them? Or like, what do you think some reasons are that a lot of people don’t go down the road of even touching that side of the business?
Cory Boatright:
Well, I’ve there, and I, you know, you and I get a chance to work with a lot of different people. You work with people probably on the financial side and everything. I get a chance to work with people on more the business side and
David Richter:
Yeah
Cory Boatright:
Grow in their business. And I can tell you that, uh, entrepreneurs when they get involved to start a business, right. They do it for a couple of reasons.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
But there’s two main ones. The first one universally is
David Richter:
yeah,
Cory Boatright:
Freedom.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Freedom. I want freedom. Right. Freedom to do what I want with whoever I want, how much I want. I don’t want anybody to tell me what to do. I don’t want to have a boss. I don’t want to have, you know, structure I don’t want to have. And what you start to have is too much freedom.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And no one talks about this, huh? Everyone says freedom is the best thing in the world. What I want to give you an example of where freedom will get you killed.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
If you’re going down the road at night and those little lines in the middle of the road, right?
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Aren’t there?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And you’re coming around a corner, right?
David Richter:
Yep.
Cory Boatright:
You’re gonna crash into that car or you’re gonna go off the cliff.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Okay. Even if the light’s on and you think you can see it, those lines aren’t in the middle of the road. They’re there for a reason. Why is it?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
It gives you guidelines and structure.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And a mentor told me something that was really powerful. He said, structure will set you free. Well, what’s interesting about that, David, is most people think structure will encapsulate them. Most people think structure will actually build them a prison. And I would say that some people that haven’t done profit first, they feel like that structure that’s going to prison them, it’s going to imprison them.
David Richter:
Sure
Cory Boatright:
It’s going to be where they can’t maneuver, you know, the way that they want to.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And the challenge is with too much freedom, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Is that you have no structure and when you have no structure, you have no way of tracking what’s important, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Your KPIs are out the window if you even track them at all. Um, you know, it’s all about how you feel. Most of the time, people without structure base everything on an emotion.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
They basically things on feelings, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
That’s not how you run a successful business that will last over time. Most of the people that I started with, I would say 80% of them, they’re all gone.
David Richter:
Oh wow.
Cory Boatright:
All these guys that were teaching on the stage
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Got involved with the game, all this other stuff, had real estate, all this stuff, lost it during the crash.
David Richter:
Hmm.
Cory Boatright:
Right.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And there not the same thing that I didn’t necessarily Correct. Because I also believe that, you know, uh, a lot of blessings come from time. Right. You know?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
To being at the right time at the right place. Um, but it’s also preparation, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And luck comes from quote, preparation. So during the crash, I made more money in my lifetime besides where we are today with our multi-family stuff. But I made more money in my lifetime during one of the larger crashes of our, of the time that we’ve seen in 2009, 2010. Why is that? It’s because my mentor told me, when you have a headache, it sucks for you. If it fantastic for Tylenol, you have to know when to pivot, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And I think for many people that I work with on that consulting side of things, maybe you might see the same thing.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
They don’t want to someone to tell them what to do. And even when you are, you know, putting something together around your business, it almost feels like now you can’t just do what you want to do
David Richter:
Right
Cory Boatright:
Now. You can’t go buy the car, you can’t go do this, you can’t go do this other thing because now I gotta put that money over here into that account. Oh. That goes into the advertising account. That goes into the operations account. And you think because you don’t have that right, that any other way is a harness to you. And I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart, and as the best direct way I can tell to you are 100% believing a lie and it’s likely the thing that’s holding you back from growing
David Richter:
Yeah
Cory Boatright:
To where you absolutely could crush it.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Because structure will set you free. KPIs are a thing that’s going to absolutely blow your business up because you have a way of tracking and profit first is just another way of setting up structure where you and your family are taken care of. First, taking the mask off, right. And then putting the mask on your baby and your children, your workers, your employees, your operations people, your everybody else so they can eat and their families can eat too.
David Richter:
Yeah. No, that’s awesome. So that’s, so, ah, man, I could dig into that so much right there because I love what you’ve said that everyone starts it for freedom and then they think that freedom is something that it’s really not, you know, freedom is, they think the lack of structure, but it is the actual adherence to that structure to give ’em the freedom they really want. Oh man. That is so good. We could just stop there, but I wanna talk a little bit about your business at that time. So when you started implementing it, like what changes did you start to see? Because I know even before we were talking, you tell me where you are today and I love his structure and I definitely want to get into that. But like, when you were first starting out, like how was that process? How was the structure? Like, if you went from more of a corporate to like thinking the, like the profit first mindset, just give us that whole transition.
Cory Boatright:
Sure. So the mindset before is basically you’re just kind of, you’re kind of taking, you’re taking some money because you see it in the account. Really. And a lot of people do that. They have it, they have their different accounts. They have maybe a couple accounts set up, but they don’t have it labeled.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
You know, they don’t really have it labeled. They might have something over here for, you know, tax. They might have something over here for another account. They might have two accounts. Right. But they don’t have any kind of structure. They don’t have any kind of label of where it goes. And the main thing is there’s no consistency.
David Richter:
Mm.
Cory Boatright:
So the consistency factor is what we were lacking. Right. I could still kind of get by on paying myself, make sure my bills were okay. All of that stuff.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
But I didn’t have any consistency of, I, every time a wire came in, X amount comes from off the wire, it goes here immediately, X amount goes here immediately. There’s a consistency, right. Just like a quote, a real business does <laugh>.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
You know, uh, payroll company does, they have consist they take things outta your check and they put it away. And so, you know, oftentimes as a small business owner, you don’t do those type of things.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
You’re running a small business, you’re running your gun. And first off, if you’re a one man show, you certainly, unless you’re very disciplined, most people don’t do that at all. They’re just trying to, you know, just make enough to pay the bills sometimes. And then when you start to get a little bigger, you might get a personal assistant, you might get ’em, you know, somebody else to help you out with some things. Well now you gotta make sure they’re paid now,
David Richter:
Right
Cory Boatright:
Now, they’re, you know, they gotta get paid.
David Richter:
Yeah
Cory Boatright:
So, you know, how is the consistency that, you know, if they’re $3,000 a month or $5,000 a month, they’re gonna get paid. Right. Well, you better structure it off what you have coming in the business consistency every single time that goes over here to know that I gotta cover that nut. You know, if your payroll, you know, and everybody’s different, right? If your payroll is, you know whatever, I mean, if your payroll says 250,000 a year, you know, or a million a year, whatever, you better make sure that you’re cutting off enough money from each one of your deals and you get, you know, you’re closing 10 deals a month or something, you better be cutting out, you know, at least five, $10,000 at each one of those wires and they better be going to, um, you know,
David Richter:
So how was that process for you
Cory Boatright:
Consistency
David Richter:
In yours? Because you didn’t have that consistency then. How did you even get introduced to it and like what were those first steps? Did you set up the accounts? Like what helped you get through that period?
Cory Boatright:
Yeah. Well, I mean, before that, I mean, we just had a couple accounts.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
We had another separate, uh, accounting firm. Um, so we had like our personal stuff kind of co like, not co-mingle. Like we had two separate accounts, but we would kind of co-mingle the business operation accounts together.
David Richter:
Yeah
Cory Boatright:
And a lot of people do that and, you know, and Yeah. And it was like, it was just messy, you know?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, and you know, so I read the Profit first, uh, book, you know, I know that you had the profit first for real estate investors, which is awesome. The niches, the riches are in the niches.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Um, but uh, you know, just understanding the idea of being able to have that consistency, opening up accounts, uh, for specific purposes. And that just really, you know, for us started to work. Um, I mean just for a simplified model, I think we started talking about this, you know, too is, you know, take a hundred thousand dollars that comes in, you know, immediately off the top Right. So we opened up an income account, an operations account, um, we didn’t have an advertising account in the beginning, but now we do, we have a profit account and then we have a personal account.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
And so when that wire comes in, 25% will come from a hundred thousand, let’s say 25% will go into operations account.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
30% goes into our advertising account, uh, 25% goes into our profit account. And then I think another 20% goes into like personal for tithing giving and um, you know, anything else.
David Richter:
Awesome. So you’ve been running this system for a while. So off over those years, did you see a marked difference in your business and the way you felt about it from when before it was a mess and no consistency to actually having the system for the structure of the cash and paying yourself?
Cory Boatright:
Oh, it’s night and day. It’s because you know, <laugh> everything’s taken care of.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Like what I consider the big rocks. Right. Um,
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
You’ve heard that story right? Where you have like a cup.
David Richter:
Yes.
Cory Boatright:
And then you have like all these rocks. So you have the pebbles.
David Richter:
Yes.
Cory Boatright:
And then you have the big rocks. Right.
David Richter:
yeah
Cory Boatright:
Well, without profit first, we are putting the pebbles in first.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
Right. And that was kind of all the things that has to be paid. The everything’s gotta be paid all. And just when, whenever it’s kind of like reactionary pay <laugh>.
David Richter:
Mm.
Cory Boatright:
Right.?
David Richter:
That’s good.
Cory Boatright:
Reactionary pay. But then, you know, the big rocks are the things that are absolutely important. <laugh>, um, you know, that you gotta take care of that you need to make sure that you’re covering, you know, payroll. You gotta make sure you’re covering your own bills, you know?
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Your own things that you gotta take care of <laugh>.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Um, keeping the lights on for yourself. If you have a mortgage, you know yourself, all the other things for you know yourself, you gotta make sure those things. So big rocks are really the things that you need to pay. And then the big rocks in the company that have to be paid and then putting the pebbles in after that. So I feel like Profit First gave us a ability to see what the big rocks are. We really didn’t even, weren’t even able to see it without kind of looking at the model.
David Richter:
Okay. Let me ask you this, cuz you started <laugh>, you’ve been an since eight basically, since you sold those glitter pencils,
Cory Boatright:
<laugh>, it’s eight years old. That’s right. And candy bars
David Richter:
And all that, all the other stuff you’ve done, even from the tv, the sell of the TV company as well was the first time, even through all that, it sounds like 20, 30 years worth of entrepreneurship there. When you had Profit First. Was that the first time you really got a grasp around the finances? I mean, what about the TV company or what about the short, you know, like some of that stuff in between? I’m just wondering like
Cory Boatright:
Yeah,
David Richter:
Was this the actual first time you act, you had that clarity at that level?
Cory Boatright:
Yeah, it was, it really was the first time I had the clarity. Um, you know, this is crazy, it is. Um, I grew that TV business in my bedroom until we actually started getting like a installer and some other people.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, but mostly it was a drop shipping business and, you know, it was, there was no debt on the company <laugh>.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, you know, there was just running and gunning.
David Richter:
Okay.
Cory Boatright:
Um, and you know, you could do that, but it was stressful, man. I’m telling you. It was stressful. I didn’t have a really much organization. Um, so you can make a whole lot of money being a gun slinger,
David Richter:
Right
Cory Boatright:
You can’t, you know, um, but it will.
David Richter:
That’s when we hear a lot of people talk, when we hear people talk
Cory Boatright:
Yeah
David Richter:
About selling a company and stuff, the selling part sounds fun, but like, they didn’t have that structure in place. They don’t talk about like the blood, sweat, tears, like the entire time. How many ever years it was, it was like, it was the struggle in grind the whole entire time. The hustle. Was that kind of what it was for you for that first sale? It was just the stress, hustle, grind that whole time and then selling it was like, whew, glad that paid off.
Cory Boatright:
I shouldn’t realistically been able to sell the company.
David Richter:
Oh wow.
Cory Boatright:
I really shouldn’t. It was just a guy that came in. He looked at all of our, uh, past invoices for the last three years. He saw our, you know, our growth from that he saw our taxes. Um, but really, I mean, it was just con it was just, it wasn’t very, uh, organizational. Um, I think we were using QuickBooks.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Uh, which we just got started like in the second year. The first year was just all an Excel spreadsheet.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And it was just really messy, you know?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And there was just no organization to it. I mean, profit First allows you to have organization to your business
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
In a way that gives you consistency. And I, that’s one thing that we were lacking and, you know, that business and really everything before we started implementing it.
David Richter:
Yeah. That’s so I love that cuz I think that’s one of the top things that when I get on calls with people is like, there’s just no consistency. I’m like, you know, then they blame it on real estate. And I, I’m like, I get it. That’s where you need a system to make it as consistent as possible, you know, for yourself. So I absolutely a hundred percent agree with what you’re saying. I just have a couple last questions here. Because it sounds like Profit First has, has helped your company immensely. What would you advice would you give to someone looking to implement Profit First in their company?
Cory Boatright:
Sure. Well, I mean, just look at everything from a really dumb down, simplified version, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, you know, like I said, we were using like a hundred thousand dollars as just a example, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
You have a hundred thousand dollars tomorrow comes into your business. Right? What’s your first thing that you’re gonna do with that money?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
You know, either you’re gonna just take all of it and put it into your company Right. And say, I’ll just worry about, uh, paying myself the next paycheck.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Right? When you may or may not know when that next paycheck is. Um, you know what, you probably gotta pay your people. So that’s one piece of it there. But you don’t have any kind of consistency of the one thing that holds most marketers back, especially in the selling operation, which we wholesale all around the country, um, you know, pretty big wholeselling, single family business. And I also have, like you said, the commercial business. Um, now over 800 units. I’m a personal owner on GP with self storage and apartments. So that’s a whole other ballgame by itself. You really, that’s a team sport. You can’t do that by yourself. You really can’t. But on the single family business, you can really be a one man show and guns slinger and up to a point where it’s just, it’s so hard to deal with everything until, cuz you have so much stress and the lack of structure in your life, even though the counterintuitive is you want to be structureless, you don’t want to have to work for somebody, you want to do what you want to do when you want to do it. How you, how many people have you said that I want freedom, you know?
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
What I want to do, when I wanna do it, how I wanna to do it. If I wanna get up and go, you know, to Hawaii for a week, I wanna be able to do it. If I wanna, you know, take off the day with, uh, take off and go, you know, in the park and sit down for three, four hours, I wanna be able to do it. If I wanna, you know, jog down the road and just without anybody tell me I need to get off, I want to be able to do it. You awesome. Yes. Great things. However, you’re missing the other piece of it. You can do that if other work still gets done.
David Richter:
Right.Yeah
Cory Boatright:
You cannot just leave something that you are doing and it takes, so imagine you driving a car and you say, you know what? I want to be able to just drive wherever I want to be able to drive to when I wanna drive how I wanna drive to, and you’re on the road, you’re on the way to doing it. Right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And you know, you decide you wanna go to sleep, you just wanna take a nap. Right?
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Well, guess what? If you take a nap and you’re driving, you’re gonna kill yourself. You’re gonna crash the car, probably the least you know, you know, hurtful thing would happen. Maybe you hit a guardrail and, and stop, but likely you’re gonna get hurt. Right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
And it’s going to be expensive and it’s gonna take time to get back to where you were. And it’s gonna be, you know, all these, but guess what? You wanted to go to sleep.
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
You had, it was your choice to do so, right?
David Richter:
Yep.
Cory Boatright:
So what if you had somebody else that said, Hey, I’m gonna go to sleep. Can you take the wheel? That’s the piece that most entrepreneurs miss.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
They don’t have somebody else that can take the wheel. Now the other thing that’s kind of interesting right now in our AI world, the chat G p t and everything else that, you know, you and I are probably techies, you know, and it’s interesting and awesome to be able to kind of see this happening in our, generation is technology can say, I’ll take the wheel, I want to hit the button for auto drive.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
That can work out too. But what you can’t do is just go to sleep.
David Richter:
Right?
Cory Boatright:
You cannot go to sleep at the wheel. And people that don’t structure people that entrepreneurs, people that are running their business, uh, whether you’re, you know, bigger business or just a one man show, you have to have structure Profit first is one of the first ways to do that in your finances.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Uh, which is, which is like the heartbeat really, it of the business, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Cory Boatright:
Um, you can be a giving business, but guess what, most of you’re not nonprofits,
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
Um, and so you better make a profit,
David Richter:
Right.
Cory Boatright:
And, uh, you know, you better be able to structure it in a way that will last.
David Richter:
Yeah. No, that’s really good because sees that all the time that people running the accidental nonprofits. So I just wanna make sure that they have some structure around it. So Corey, this has been awesome. I love the whole story from going eight years old, selling those glitter pencils to where you are today. But then I also love too how you talked about, you know, the emotional feeling of it’s okay to pay yourself first. Like you can pay yourself first. Like, and you might have to fight off some feelings or some other, you know, some other things that have been brought to you or in your mindset in front of your past or other people. And I love what you said,
Cory Boatright:
Yeah,
David Richter:
Can’t give a drink with a hole in your cup. That was such a good example of that. I love that you said about the business and freedom and how they link together, but freedom to people doesn’t mean, shouldn’t mean that you can just do anything at any time with no rules or consequences or guidelines. And that was really good. That structure is the true freedom. And then, you know, like in your business, two, see money, take money, no structure. It’s the same thing. Like that’s not real freedom. Real freedom is knowing what you can take and knowing what you can utilize. So this has been amazing. You’ve dropped a lot of value here today. It’s been awesome. But what, how can people get in touch with you or how can the listeners provide value back? What are you working on or how can they connect with you?
Cory Boatright:
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I’m glad, um, uh, you got some value from that. So if you’re interested in running a wholesale operation, we’ve done that for years. Uh, we do over a hundred transactions a year with that. Um, you know, uh, been, uh, really amazing to see that grow and learn how to be able to do that, whether from a local standpoint or from a national standpoint. We closed in over 30 states last year. Um, so, you know, pretty you have to have some things down then to be able to do that. So you can go to coreyscoaching.com to kind of learn a little bit more about that.
David Richter:
Awesome.
Cory Boatright:
Um, and then if you’re interested in multi-family for or self storage, those two asset classes particular, um, we’ve, uh, been doing syndications, uh, we’re interested in, if you’re accredited investor, uh, that is interested in, you know, kind of putting money into place where it’s not making just 4% in the bank, but actually structured with, uh, real estate and also getting paid, uh, quarterly with that money and you know, et cetera. So you can go to, um, investingcapitalgroup.com, investingcapitalgroup.com and, uh, we’d love to have a conversation with you. Actually, you feel I’ll foreman there. I’ll meet up with you. We talk for 10, 15 minutes. Tell me kind of what you’re looking to do and, uh, when you’re wanting to do it. And, uh, we got a lot of people on the sidelines right now, uh, David, with a lot of money and there’s kind of waiting for the right opportunities.
David Richter:
Awesome.
Cory Boatright:
And that’s what we focus on finding awesome off market opportunities that allow leverage and growth and um, you know, buying a great cap rates to be able to protect downside. Um, so we’re, you know, and have a great team to do it.
David Richter:
Awesome. Well, there you go. I believe in Corey. A lot of other people do. He’s been at this for a long time, literally since he was eight years old. So please reach out to him with those two different websites. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. This has been awesome. And if you are a real estate investor listening to this and you resonate with Corey, what he said, like, I feel bad for paying myself or like, there is no structure. I feel like I’m just running and gunning it all the time. I’m hustling for every deal and then it closes. Then I’m like, where’s all the money going? If you’re feeling like that, you can head over to simplecfo.com. You can hop on a call with us. We can at least see if we’re a good fit for you to be able to get you outta that rat race and stop that deal to deal cycle. I don’t want you living there. If you’ve got some of that’s stinking thinking and I want to get that out of you, your life and help you turn that around from the financial end and remember to make profit a habit in your business. Listen to this episode again and again. There was so many good nuggets here. Thank you so much for being a listener. And Cory, thank you so much for being on and providing so much value here today.
Cory Boatright:
Thank you Dave. I appreciate you. Remember, be a servant. Appreciate you.
Outro:
This episode of The Profit First for REI podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call at simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on the Profit First for REI podcast with David Richter.
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