Gangster Profit

Business and Marketing Web Radio Show featuring Robert MacDonald and Kevin Bombino

Episode 002: Profit Is Everything

Filed Under: Gangster Mentalities, Length: 4:32
The guys explain why profit matters and revenue means nothing.


K: Alright.  We're here to talk about gangster mentality #1 first and foremost is profit is everything.

R: Cash is king, bebe.

K: We do not care how many twitter followers you have...

R: Paha! No.

K: Facebook friends...

R: False.

K: People who look at your Tumblr...

R: How many likes you have...

K: Vimeo, ... look, we don't even care how much sales you do.

R: Nothing. Yeah, absolutely not, revenue? False. Ridiculous number that means nothing.

K: Look, I have a lot more respect for one man who makes $10,000 a month than a guy who started a business with 10 employees, an office, a fleet of vehicles and no money to show for it.

R: That's right, that's all fake, it's all show. What you want is money in the bank at the end of the period. That's it. Whether it's a month, whether it's a quarter, whether it's a year. You need your money in the bank. I don't care, no one has... you know... Twitter followers probably have some abstract value, yes you can turn them into money, but they are not money themselves. So in the end, all you can focus on is profit.

K: And that's all you should focus on. I mean, don't start from day one thinking about trying to build a brand and then later figuring out how to monetize it. You know what, you can monetize from day one. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just wrong.

R: Yeah. Exactly, this is not about "Starting an internet business" or getting involved in "E-commerce" or any of these stupid terms that people make up. This is about selling stuff. It doesn't matter whether you're selling it to someone in person and getting someone to sign on a dotted line and hand you cash or whatever, or selling something over the internet... you're just selling. You're just making money, it's being gangster and just bringing in cash in the door, that's it.

K: Yes. Bring in cash. Especially if this is your first business. Don't let your first business be some kind of wishy-washy thing that you're not 100% sure how it makes money. Your first business should have an incredibly clear sales process. It should be you selling a thing to a person.

R: Yes. Selling, just straight up selling. Not giving stuff away, and then maybe sometime in the future you'll find a way to monetize... if you're not hard selling people at some point within a few stages of when you first get them as a lead online, then you are messing up.

K: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just can't tell you how many people come in and they say, "Oh well we want to start a site where it's gonna be, uh, it's gonna help people create kickball leagues in their neighborhood, and we're gonna eventually make money selling banner ads. No. Sell something. If you came to me with that business model, I would say, charge people to run the league. Charge people to be in the league. Charge venues to sponsor the league. At any point, there should be people handing you money at every step.

R: Close. Don't be scared to close, is what it all comes down to. At some point in every salesman's career they need to close and actually ask for the money. And by coming up with some creative little scheme that makes everybody happy, you're really just avoiding the issue of asking for cash. Don't make that mistake. Face that problem first.

K: Look, let's be real. Your site is actually going to be adding value to people. Hopefully you'll be selling them a product they want, a product they need, a product that solves a problem of theirs and people are willing to pay for that. That's what capitalism is based on in the first place. I mean, it's just baffling to me how many people try to start an internet business, they think that the internet means that you can't ask for money. That is completely false. You should be asking for money at every step, and people will happily give it to you in exchange for the value you provide.

R: That's right.

K: And you know what, if you disagree with this, you're probably not going to like the rest of these uh, little radio dispatches, because this is GangsterProfit rule #1.

R: That's right.

K: And if you're not focusing on profit, we're not sure what you're doing.

R: Yeah, you're playing some other kind of business game that uh, we don't play.


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