Val: Hey guys, I’m so excited to introduce you to Jordan today. She has such a fun story with Profit First and with her business and businesses. She and her husband had a business together a few years back and then it’s transitioned a lot and she just has a very relatable story with money and finances and Profit First and so We’re going to hear first from her about what is Pete and Jordan?

How did that, grow because of Profit First and just kind of give us that story.

Jordan: Yeah. So, well, thank you for having me. I’m excited to share this because, I am a big believer in it, but also like I’ve gone through some of the struggles of like starting it and figuring it out. And with Pete and Jordan, my husband’s name is Pete. And so we’ve had like five DBAs from that original LLC, but essentially it was called shooby media and we were doing like all kinds of marketing.

And then we branded it. for ourselves. And we were doing, coaching and courses and it was Pete and I. So we just called it Pete and Jordan. And, at that time in our business, my husband and I were living full time in an RV and traveling the country. And, it, I mean, it was like the dream. We loved it.

And our expenses were actually pretty low, which was great. And like, we finally got to a point where our business, we felt like we were finally out of that like feast and famine cycle. And we like, you know, everyone’s like, Oh, hit six figures. Yeah. Like there’s just this goal. And you’re like, how am I, that just, it felt like it would never happen.

And then we hit it and we were still like, well, where’s all our money? Like, we felt like we still had the same amount of money. Whether we made 3, 000 a month in our business or 10, 000 a month in our business, and we’re like, it wasn’t supposed to feel like this. And I think we thought, like, we put this, like, the six figure Um, number up on a pedestal of like, when we hit that, we’re going to have it all together and we’re going to be successful.

And that wasn’t true because we didn’t set it up the right way from the beginning. And we were just kind of like paying ourselves as we needed it. We didn’t have kids at the time we lived in an RV, you know, it was, we could, you know, make it work. And yeah, I just, I, I am the finance person of my life. The marriage and like that just stressed me out, like not having a handle on the business finances too.

Like, you know, you’d want it to join. I remember we, we invested in a big, like a coaching program and like, we had the money in the bank, but I’m like, but we didn’t know if we actually could afford it. Like, and I remember reading Private First at the time and thinking and reading about like, Oh, Bank balance accounting.

I was like, yeah, this is, this is how we make decisions. And this is not how I want to keep making decisions. So all that to say, I did the very painful, it was emotionally painful profit first assessment. And, you know, we are making six figures in revenue for our business and I actually pulled it up. we Brought home for that.

When we did the assessment. our percentage of operating expense was 69 percent of our business like 69 percent I’m like what are we spending our money on and that honestly like it hurt But it was a really eye opening time for us because we were like No longer, like we, this is not being good steward of our business.

This is not going to be a good steward of our resources. And so I think it felt really good for me when I felt like I had no idea. Like we hit this and I’m like, I don’t know what we’re doing wrong. I just, I needed a system. Like no one teaches you how to run a business. Especially if the financial part of it and so to me reading profit first and implementing it, it felt like the first time I actually had a roadmap and I am a rule follower by my nature.

So, like, I’d rather you tell me, like, do X, Y and Z and so following that. It was so, and even just like getting really clear on like what, I don’t know what I like, what, what’s okay, not okay, but what’s reasonable to pay yourself. Like no one has these conversations. It’s hard things to like Google or search

Val: Yeah. Mm

Jordan: Um, I know you have like the salary, you know, freebie, like what to pay yourself. And I just, we had no idea where to start. So when we implemented profit first. in that business, it was a game changer. And, you know, each quarter you make adjustments and like within a year we were paying ourselves 50 percent of our revenue, which is crazy because we weren’t, I mean, we made more money by that point, but like, even I’m convinced, even if we kept making more money, like we still probably would have had 70 percent of our operating expenses.

If we, you know, like it forces you to look at things like, I think the bigger you scale, You know, the more you pay for things and the bigger other issues, like it’s, if you don’t solve the problem to start, it’s just going to be a bigger problem later.

Val: Right. Oh, yeah. Because we, there’s always more money that we can spend. And we can always come up with something. And there are a lot of really great. Investments we can make in our business. But when you look at a bank account, one bank account, and the huge number in there, you think you can make a lot bigger investments than you actually can, and then it eventually comes back around.

So I would really love to hear how you made that switch. Like what kind of expenses did you cut? Was that painful? Like, just tell me a little bit about that. Mm-Hmm.

Jordan: Yeah, I think, um, a lot of it, I think, you know, at the time we, we had very high operating expenses in terms of two things. One were the tools that we were using. And like, I love tech and tools. Most people don’t geek out about that, but like, I was like, we can have a land of the lead pages subscription and this and that.

And it just forced us to look like, I mean, in our one business. We pay over a thousand dollars a month for that email software, which is like mind blowing to people, but it’s a software for Shopify stores and it’s worth it to us. But at that time, I think we were paying like almost 300 a month for emails.

And for the type of business we were running, we didn’t need that level of that program. And like, we could switch to something like flow desk that we were paying 20 a month. And like, we That takes effort, but when you start to look at like how much that’s actually going to impact what you can pay yourself every month, like the tools were a really big part of that.

And we like, we love Facebook ads. That was kind of our jam and that’s what we taught. And so we spent a lot of money on paid advertising. And to some extent we’re like, this is great. This is making us money, but at what cost. Right. And so now the cool thing about that is like, with our business that we run now, the e commerce business, it’s allowed us and Pete specifically to kind of rein in and cap the ad spend because we have like profit margins that we want to hit.

And so we’re like, yes, we could spend more to make more, but if we’re not actually more profitable and it’s just. There’s a lot more that comes with making more and spending more too. And like, in that business, if we are profiting the same, whether we spend $50,000 a year on ads or $100,000 a year on ads, then like, we kind of would rather spend $50,000 and not have all the craziness that comes with the other side of that.

So, I’d say, It made us look at like just like unnecessary expenses and also maybe just looking at other platforms we could use. And it also made us look at our revenue of what is most profitable for us and what are the ways that we’re making money. And, um, Like what, you know, what could we, you know, what was really time intensive and took a lot to like make that sale versus something, you know, now recently in my business, all my income last year came from referrals and word of mouth.

And so, you know, there’s a big difference when you think of profitability of your offers too.

Val: Right. Yeah. It’s really interesting to me how profit first, you know, at first glance you think it’s kind of just a system for, you know, shifting your money around in different places, but the awareness that it brings and the clarity that it brings, it forces you to get way more intentional, not with what you’re just with what you’re spending.

I think a lot of times people just think, Oh, you’re going to tell me to spend less and I don’t want to do that. But actually it helps you to think really intentionally about the money you are making and making the right money on the right services. And. I mean, Mike Michalowicz has multiple business books and he talks about a lot of other business strategies that all kind of work together.

And so those things are kind of sprinkled in, you don’t even know it. You know, like he has other strategies within the Profit First book that it just, it just makes you think about business in a much smarter CEO like way that, like you said, Nobody’s teaching us to do that, you

Jordan: You know, what’s funny is I actually read the pumpkin plan first because we were like, oh, shiny ball syndrome with offers, right? And we were like, what is happening? And so I think I loved the pumpkin plans much. I’m like, okay, I’ll read this other one that like, I don’t really want to deal with my finances. But yeah, you know, I think it makes you make, it makes you take ownership. And accountability with your business and treat it like a business. And, you know, I think that just came down for us. It’s like, all right, we, you know, we want to have kids. We want to, we don’t want to just be like breaking even or like wondering where our money is going.

And so, yeah, profit first, completely. I mean, we went from like that six figure, what was it? I guess we were making like 30, 000 or less with, you know, think of it. What? You’re taking from that versus like we wound up scaling it to like 250 in revenue at its prime. We were bringing home half of that. Like that was a huge difference because we had implemented profit first earlier. as we grew that system helped us to like, I don’t know, it, it blessed our business and our lives a lot more.

Val: right. Oh yeah. Which gives you more ability to keep going in your business. Like it energizes you. It feels worth it.

Jordan: Yeah, you just feel like you’re being wise with your decisions and your finances and everything like I just I think it just makes you a better decision maker honestly

Val: Oh yeah. I think it has a massive influence on decision making and business. And I think that that’s another one of those side effects. A lot of people who implement profit first, their business grows a lot more after that because they are being smarter with their decisions. And yeah, it’s not just like the benefits are not just financial and they’re not just what you pay yourself.

Like it, there, it goes so far beyond that.

Jordan: And that is, I think for a lot of people, for us, it was like, I just want a normal paycheck. Like, and I, and my skepticism at the beginning was like, this is never going to work for me because some months we make 2, 000 and some months we make 10, 000. And like, this is never going to work. I’m never gonna be able to estimate any pretty much speaks exactly to that.

And you’ve done episodes on that, but like, I think even just the power of knowing I can pay myself regularly. Even with inconsistent income, like that first step to me was like, Oh my gosh, there’s a solution for this. That actually is easy to implement. And it was just this, like, you take that first step and you’re like, you just build momentum of realizing, like it’s, it’s the little simple disciplines and habits that make a huge difference.

Val: Mm hmm. Totally. Okay. So tell us what you’ve been doing because you’re no longer doing Pete and Jordan. Now you’ve transitioned to what your focus is Jordan Jones and Pete does daily Kairos, which we’re not going to have time to talk about today. We’ll have to do that in the future, but tell us what the last Kairos was.

Kind of year or so has looked like and how that transition has been with profit First. Mm-Hmm.

Jordan: So the, I guess context there is when I mentioned like our prime of being Jordan just now, that is actually when we shut the business down. That was the Lord and that’s a whole other conversation. But the, the daily Kairos that you mentioned was like a Kickstarter.

Side project that wound up, we wound up going full time in that. And that’s an e commerce store and a totally different thing that like you said, pizza, mostly running. And so the Pete and Jordan work, which was a lot of consulting and coaching. I just kind of did on my own here and there throughout the last years.

And then last year, like I said, I got a lot of clients, one on one just word of mouth and referrals and previous clients. And so I just kind of took it. You know, took projects as I could. Um, we moved twice cross country in a year and I had one and a half days of childcare while we lived in Colorado.

And so my work schedule was very limited, but I was like, I’ll just do what I can with it. But it wasn’t part of our budgeted income. So we budgeted our income on our other business. And so for that reason, I didn’t have, I didn’t feel like, Oh, I’m not going to set a profit first. I don’t, I was kind of like.

Kind of back to that willy nilly of like, I’ll take projects as I can and like, do what I can. Still had low expenses, so it wasn’t a huge deal. Like I had to make sure I could cover these expenses, but I certainly wasn’t doing the percentages like strict, you know, as strictly in the, The plan, I wasn’t working the plan in the same way, but because we’ve had years of doing profit first, I think that that foundation’s ingrained in me of like, okay, I can’t pay myself more than half of this because I do actually still need to save for taxes and things.

And so, um, the only time I actually, I didn’t pay myself regularly in that business because we didn’t last year. Um, because like I said, it wasn’t our budgeted income, but we did use it for, um, I pulled owner’s draws to like pay for a big house expense and repair that was unexpected and things like that.

But again, I like couldn’t max it out. I think because that internal limitation of like, no, you can’t take it all. It’s not, you know, you need to save for other things and pro, taxes. So, but I will say like. Even doing that where I had the foundation, I was still like, I feel like this is not, I’m still not stewarding it well, because I’ve already know there’s a better way.

I’ve done profit first. I know it’s better. And then you and I connected towards the end of last year. And I was like, man, I really do love profit first. So like hearing you talk about all the time, I was like, I really need to get back to this. But to be honest, we’ve changed states three times in the last.

You know, year and a half and our, like the bank part of it was just a pain in my butt. I was so frustrated by my small local bank and it was just a pain in my butt to like do it all. And so I was like, kind of just pushing it off of when we get settled, you know, we moved to Colorado for a ministry opportunity.

We moved to Virginia for kind of the same. And like, I’m like, all right, after this year we said, I’ll figure it out. But then you told me about relay and I was like, okay, well, I’m just going to do it now then. So this year, like the start of this year was kind of a goal of, okay, I actually need to get back to.

Val: Mm

Jordan: Intentionally doing profit first, intentionally doing the percentages and treat this like a business again and not just kind of fun money or pay off debt money, right? Like I think my perspective, I think the Lord did some work on my heart too of like, all right, if you’re going to pay for any kind of childcare or like not be with my babies for any kind of the week, like if I’m doing that to work on my business, then I’m going to treat it like a business again.

And. I’m going to get back to doing my percentages. So I’m excited to be kind of back on the boat, even though I kind of went a little willy nilly on my own.

Val: And I just, I think that it’s refreshing to hear that because people need to realize that it’s, it’s not always going to be perfect. And it’s a journey, even as cheesy as that sounds like you’re going to have a financial journey, especially with profit first, where I tell people a lot, you most likely will fall off the wagon at some point.

Like it’s, it’s just good to kind of expect that there’s a chance that’s going to happen, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work for you. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. It’s it’s you’re human,

Jordan: Yeah. And it’s so easy to get back on. Like once you’ve learned the skill, like, I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve ridden a bike or actually I rode it in the summer, but like, so let’s just say six months, I could get back on it really easily. Right. So it’s. The same idea, I think with profit first, like, even though I wasn’t doing it really intentionally, it, the principles were still guiding my decisions.

I still felt like I was making good decisions. Maybe not as best as I would be if I was looking at my actual numbers every month, but you know, it’s, what’s allowed me, like, I feel like doing that work first and setting it up years ago and having years of experience, I feel really confident that I can easily do it now.

Like, it’s not, I feel like the burden or like the, like, Not cost of entry, but I mean like the, to get into it, to start it doesn’t feel as hard. It just kind of feels like

Val: Right.

Jordan: picking back up from where we left off.

Val: Mm hmm. Oh, yeah, and I think the people who had a hard time implementing it at first or know somebody who did, just like anything in life, I think we tend to inflate that kind of like The basket of laundry, you know, we think it’s going to take 30 minutes to fold. It actually takes five.

Jordan: I think, I think that every week,

Val: yes. Oh yes, I do too, for sure.

But I think that profit first and especially getting back on the wagon when you’ve learned it previously, it’s not going to take as long as you think. And we’re remembering the pain of the first time, but it won’t be as painful the second time, and even for anyone who’s listening, who has never set it up before, everybody’s. Journey of getting started with Profit First is going to be different. And there’s no way for me to know, you know, some creatives just figure it out. They, they can do it on their own. Some really need a lot of handholding. Some just need a little bit of guidance and they can do it. And it’s, it’s just not, I don’t think it’s worth our time and our energy to feel guilty about how hard we’ve worked.

It is or is not for us. And I would love to hear just from you about how, how hard it was to set up or, you know, even the, the emotional side of the past year and a half of maybe not doing it as strictly and then getting a little more intentional now, like just kind of talk me through how you’ve processed that on the emotional side and what made it worth it.

Jordan: I mean, I honestly think that was the most difficult part of setting it up is you kind of have to face the reality of like, huh. I might’ve wasted hundreds or thousands of dollars or like a frustration truthfully of like, dang it. Like if we had this in place a year before, like we would have paid ourselves a whole lot more.

And there’s some shame, I think, and guilt that comes with that of like, we work so hard in our businesses. We work so hard to like create awesome offers and products and things that people want. Right. And to serve people well and to like make money. And so like when you put all this effort and energy and love into stuff, And you’re always focused on like the revenue side and then you don’t focus on the all the other aspects of it You’re not doing yourself any favors and I think it like coming to the reality of that like facing that was the hardest part for me because I Like following rules.

And so for me Profit first like I feel like I’m very Right brain, left brain and that like I’m, I’m visionary creative for sure that actually I struggle if I don’t have systems in place, like, because I can, you know, come up with an idea and build a landing page tonight and want to do it tomorrow. But like, for things that actually, you know, finances, we cannot escape in our business.

Taxes we cannot escape ever in our whole life. And so there’s. These things we know are going to happen. We have to pay the bills every month. We have to like pay ourselves or it’s not a business, right? And so having a system for the things that like I don’t like to do or I don’t want to do really helped me just do it.

Like to me that was actually the easier part because it was kind of someone finally telling me here and I really I think I love how Mike lays it out because It’s really practical. It’s not like, hmm, vision, like, you know, think about what you want to make. It’s like, no, if this is, you know, this is the range of revenues, this is how much, you know, he gives you pretty clear suggestions and ideas of like where to start with your, you know, allocation percentages.

And so for me, it just felt like, okay, I have a goal. And I have like a really clear path and strategy to get there. And all I have to do is like a tiny bit of work every week. Like, yes, there’s, I think with anything good in your business, there’s some upfront work to set it at. But the maintaining of profit first is, is very easy.

And like, you can make it pretty automated with something like Relay.

Val: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Relay. For those who don’t know, Relay is an online bank. We’ll link it in the show notes, but it just makes Profit First so much easier and they’re actually official partners with Profit First. And so they’ve made it so you can like automate the disbursements, moving the money to the different accounts.

Yeah. So, definitely check that out and, just know that even I know for some people, it’s going to be a mind block to switch banks. And so maybe tell us a little bit about that, like your process

Jordan: That was the biggest pain in my butt. Honestly, that was like what delayed me probably two months because I have three kids four and under and my darn bank wanted me to come into the bank to close my business accounts and like sign a piece of paper. So for me to get three kids in car seats and drive 15 minutes to the bank to sign a piece of paper.

It sat on my to do list for like a month because I’m like, I don’t have time for this. And that is frustrating, but it also was more fire underneath me of like, I do not want this to be like, this is going to be forever. And also, I mean, I actually, I worked for a credit union in college and so I like know enough to be dangerous about how banks work.

Meaning when I set it up. With like a big national bank, originally our business accounts and they’re like, Oh, you need to have these minimums. And they look at you like you’re a crazy person when you want five accounts or six or however many you want. I had to like convince a manager to put a special waiver on my account so that I wouldn’t get charged maintenance fees.

For zeroing, you know, some of them are meant to be zeroed out and things. And so they, those waivers though would fall off routinely. And I’d have to call back in and be like, stop charging me these maintenance fees. And like, they’re like, oh yeah, we’re sorry. But if I didn’t stay on top of that. It was just a pain in my butt.

And so I think it got to the point where like, I don’t want to have to keep doing this. I need to do a little bit like the painful thing of just going to the bank. Once I was there, it was a five second, like, here’s your closing thing. Like, make sure that you’re, you know, all your transfers and everything are Set up, but honestly, if you, I try to do my admin tasks once a week on Fridays, if you can block an hour to like go through all your, like, I got realized that up first actually, so that I could transfer, I could go through and look at what are things that happen automatically?

Where does my Stripe or my honey book payout go to? And like, I could just have those accounts ready and like money would start already going into there. So to me, I kind of gave myself a month in between like setting up. Relay. And having new income go in there and like stuff get paid out of there before I was confident to like go shut the other stuff down.

But like the comparison of setting up five relay bank accounts versus, it’s literally just like a button like, oh, you want another one here? You want another one here? So easy. I’m like kicking myself. I don’t think it existed five years ago when I did it for the first time. Okay, that makes me feel a little better because that, I think that’s the hardest part when I read the book five years ago being like, Where do I bank with?

Now it’s easy. Now I think that part’s easy. Just go use Relay. You

Val: Yeah. And just a pro tip, too, for anyone who’s going to be closing accounts. Mm hmm. You can call ahead and ask them to like say I want to close these accounts please have all the paperwork ready so that you can show up and literally just sign and Actually, this is funny. I actually didn’t have to sign anything for mine I don’t know why like when I was closing a bunch of accounts.

I didn’t have to sign anything So it’s gonna be different

Jordan: Some of the accounts I had, you know what? I think because we were a joint. Because Pete and I, like, we co own business.

Val: Yeah.

Jordan: I want to say that’s why. Because I, I, like, some of the business accounts I could close over the phone and some I had to go.

Val: Okay.

Jordan: person and that’s probably because when I set it up I probably had Pete there for like the main one that we opened together and then I went and opened up all the additional ones later and that’s probably why so you might not even need to go in person you might be able to just be like hey call them cancel my account thanks

Val: Yeah. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and actually talk to a human. It’s actually usually a lot faster.

Jordan: I know it is it’s like it’s one of those things where you just like don’t like doing adult things of

Val: Oh, yeah.

Jordan: calling our banks

Val: But you also feel very accomplished after you do. So,

Jordan: the it was the greatest to do to check off a month later

Val: Yes. It is. Okay. So I just want to ask kind of the hard question of, do you have any regrets about how you’ve done things in the past? Or do you wish you would have done, you know, the last year so differently with how you weren’t quite following it to a tee?

Just kind of give us the raw, like true answer to

Jordan: Yeah, that’s a great question. I like that you don’t shy away from the hard, maybe awkward questions sometimes because yeah, I, I think. If I, I mean, if I could go back and just do profit first all the time and never stop, for sure, I would have kept doing that last year. And I think that it partially comes back to like a mindset thing again of like, I, you know, I think part of it is pride of like, Oh, I know what I’m doing.

Like, I’ll just pay myself. It’s not a big deal. But I think when we just say like, Oh, I’m not going to use this, like this income, we don’t, we’re, we’re blessed that we didn’t like quote unquote need it. But that mindset also put my business back in like the hobby box almost. And I didn’t. Treat it like a business, which bleeds into decision making.

It bleeds into like how you talk about it. And I think even like for me this year, when we moved again and we were looking at childcare and I’m like, you know, if I’m going to be paying someone to like help me take care of my kids, because I’m going to work on this business, then I need to treat it like a business in all the aspects of it.

And not just like be willy nilly about my goals, not just be willy nilly about my finances. I’m like, ah, we make what we make and that’s great. Like. Then I’m not like I don’t know to me as a mom if anything is gonna take away from the time I have with my kids like I just I, I need to be intentional about it and I want to be a good steward.

And I think for me, it really came down to stewardship of, finances especially, but like just stewardship of my business and not just focus. And like you said, like we talked about it in the beginning, but it made me think about like, all right, what offers are going to be the most profitable for me?

Right? Like I work less than 10 hours a week and going through profit first again now has been, Oh, such a good way to start. And I’m kind of kicking myself like, Dang it. I should have done this a year ago because how different could my last year have been if, you know, if I thought about it that way, but you know, I think for anyone that might be in that position that either fell away or they’ve just been like pushing off starting living in that, like, you know, we can shut ourselves to death, but like, we can’t change what we didn’t do.

Like the best thing, you know, what I say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. So the same thing with crop first, the best time to implant it, start it was when you started your business. And the second best time is today. And that’s kind of where I’m like, I, you know, I can’t, I can’t change that, but I don’t want to look back a year from now and wish I had done it differently then too.

Val: Yeah. Totally. And I also just want to encourage you that I think even wishing that you would have done it a little bit differently, I love that you still kind of naturally stuck. To the principles. And it’s not like you spent all of that money. And that money did contribute to your family. And you were in a really weird season of life and, and you were able like that, the income you made still was able to support you through that season in its own unique way, you know?

Jordan: mean, that’s true for people think about it with budgeting, right? Like there are seasons where you might be really strict on budgeting or not, but like if you’ve ever done financial peace university or any kind of budgeting, like those, I think the principles, once you learn those things, like they, Stick with you, and it’s a lot easier to, like, rein back in then.

To start over, you know,

Val: Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay. Well, this has been so great. Thank you for being transparent with us. And can you just tell us really quick what, I mean, I don’t know that we’ve really said officially what you do, so tell us what you do

Jordan: like how she earned money.

Val: yes. And where, obviously where to find you.

Jordan: Yes. So, um, I am a marketing coach. I totally geek out over funnels and strategies that help you build sustainable and scalable businesses. Especially if you are a mom or a stay at home mom who wants to make money online without like DMing all your friends or feeling icky about it. I am really passionate about helping you.

moms and mom entrepreneurs, um, just create businesses with online products and courses and things like that. So, um, if you’re interested in learning more, you can check out my website at Jordan Jones. co. That’s also my Instagram is Jordan Jones. co. And I also host a podcast that that has been on called the work in worship podcast.

And that’s for, Christian moms and entrepreneurs to have just conversations about. How our faith impacts all of the work we do both in our lives and in our businesses. So

Val: Mhm. And it is so worth a listen. As you can already tell, she has such a calming voice and like, you just want to, you just, you seem so chill. I love it.

Jordan: Thanks.

Val: Also she’s a funnel genius and it just like ekes out of her when you’re talking to her. So you guys definitely want to follow Jordan, all the marketing funnel things from her.

Thank you so much for being here. It’s always a joy.

Jordan: Thanks, Val. I appreciate it.