I Help Founders Add $100K+ to Their Business While Earning $15K/Month
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey Starters! I’m honored to be on this road with you. I’m Brian Carmody, founder of The Profit Finders, a profit growth strategy company.
Our flagship products and services are a fractional Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), a Mastermind Group for strategy and accountability (it’s all worthless if you don’t implement!), and for the Do-It-Yourself crowd, I have an online, self-paced learning library that will teach you more business operator skills than any MBA program.
The Profit Finders’ monthly revenue is $13k to $15k.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
After 16 years in Corporate America, on January 1, 2015, I took an equity position in a small manufacturing company that served a single state (NH). My role as President and Chief Revenue Officer was to take the company national.
So I did what most business owners do when they want more sales: I hired “experts.”
We spent tens of thousands of dollars on digital marketing firms, PPC and social media ads, PR firms, etc.
They all produced ZERO sales.
And we hired multiple experts in each of the above marketing specialties. Lots of over-promising. Lots of under-delivering.
Specifically, we were told by each new agency, “We help companies like yours all the time. This is going to be easy.” They designed Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, and funnels from templates they swore had worked “many times” for similar companies.
Each outsourced marketing agency produced zero leads, even though our product market was growing and had hit $6.5B.
And yet…
- We tripled our revenue
- Grew from serving one state to 48
- Lowered our break-even by 70%, which threw our profit margin into the stratosphere
- And made it to the Inc. 5000 List three times.
As a result, I fumed with a hybrid emotion that I called “Grateful-Pissed.”
I was grateful for the sensational growth.
But I was pissed that I had so many “experts” come to me swearing they could help our company grow with massive numbers…only to produce zero sales.
You may be thinking, “Well, Brian, maybe the marketing, advertising, and PR experts weren’t successful because you had some weird product that nobody wanted.”
You’re gonna love this. Our product? Electric height-adjustable desks. Yes, that industry where virtually everyone in America bought a height-adjustable desk in those years.
We felt like our product checked all the boxes consumers wanted:
- Made in the USA
- An app to teach you how to set up the desk
- Reminders throughout the day to sit and stand
But our hired guns weren’t even able to sell water (our sit-stand desks) to people running a marathon in the desert (amidst the craze when big companies and private consumers were buying desks in this category and creating a $6.5B market.)
And yet they swore they could.
Over-promised. Under-delivered.
Grateful-Pissed.
During the pandemic shutdown, I reflected back on everything we did to have such phenomenal growth.
I discovered some specific strategies that we used within our company to grow the way I described above.
And those strategies and that experience lit a fire under me to take this message to the world. These were the seeds for what would become The Profit Finder.
I am driven by helping other businesses learn strategies that can help them grow without relying on paid ads, etc.
My specific experiences along with our proprietary software (built on 1 billion weighted algorithms) give founders, owners, and managers a specific set of strategies that when stacked in the right order create a compound growth effect.
In short, my clients know how much revenue and profit they can expect to make if they execute the strategies I prescribe in the order I prescribe them. Here’s part of an implementation Gantt chart for a client.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
We hired data scientists to create what I call a checklist on steroids. It’s a proprietary software backed by over 497 million weighted algorithmic sequences. It enables my strategy team to assess the strengths and weaknesses of virtually any business.
Our intellectual property is baked with these sequences and then tested through over 50,000 simulations. We now have the power to accurately predict what financial impacts a given profit strategy will have on the business. And it’s been proven accurate in many businesses now.
Our profit strategy success is driven by a few key principles:
- Start with building your Market-Dominating Position and Compelling Offer. Everything you do and everything you say springs from that foundation.
- If you already have revenue, get some quick wins by cutting your costs by 5% and raising your prices by 5.5%. If you have a 10% Net Profit Margin or better, this will double your profit. This is a great momentum starter.
- We aren’t looking to make massive changes to your business. No founder/owner wants that. The Profit Finders strategies work on small changes and small impacts.
- Stack strategies on top of each other to create a compound growth effect. I call this Profit Acceleration.
- Home runs get on the TV highlight reels, but singles and doubles get you to the World Series. Our goal is to take you to Game 7.
- Lead generation is only important if you follow it through to the dollar you put in your jeans at the end of the month. Anyone who hangs their hat on “lead generation” is schlepping mere vanity metrics. You’re better than that.
But the real story here is not only the power of the software. The real story is the doubling and tripling of revenue and profits in the businesses that have engaged us.
When people spend time with me in person and get to know, like, and trust me, it becomes easy for me to stand out in a world of cold prospectors.
I know people are enamored by technology. And ours is quite powerful and very slick.
The first version served as an assessment tool. Now it has become a stronger assessment tool, but also a coaching, communication, and training tool.
Think of it this way. Every brain surgeon walks into surgery with a checklist that she and her team use to make sure the surgery goes according to plan. And if something goes wrong, there are steps in the checklist that guide the team through that challenge.
That’s what our software is like. A checklist on steroids. But is it the surgeon or the checklist that is most important? We think you need both to operate at a world-class level. You need both the profit strategist’s intellect, wisdom, and experience, boosted by the thoroughness of the software.
The Profit Finders has its roots in innovation, creativity, and elbow grease. It is a mindset as much as it is data science.
The Profit Finders was profitable while I was still running the manufacturing company. It took four months. Clientele was built from my network.
I am starting to see the results of a repeatable teaching system everywhere I go:
- I post 60-second videos explaining my 40 profit strategies on 6 social media channels,
- I share about my systems when I’m a podcast guest
- I discuss my systems on my own podcast (How to Dominate Your Market With The Profit Finder) and at my speaking engagements and workshops
- And I go in-depth on all my teaching systems in my books.
These things are working and getting me noticed.
My clients come to me through the free content I post on social media (the short videos). When I teach a live, in-person Profit Acceleration Workshop, over half the attendees ask to work with me.
I put out content and people find me. I don’t do cold solicitation. I don’t do any solicitation anymore. The dynamic has completely reversed now that I’ve been consistent with teaching and helping.
The live events have become my biggest network expander and client attraction process. I’ve now experienced first-hand why Tony Robbins and many others have done live events for so long.
When people spend time with me in person and get to know, like, and trust me, it becomes easy for me to stand out in a world of cold prospectors.
I know entrepreneurs want to leverage digital outreach as much as possible. If it works, it can scale. But the fact is in-person works when it comes to client acquisition. People are burnt out from the email inbox spam. In-person is a refreshing way to get comfortable with someone.
A few days ago I Zoomed with a director at a publicly traded company that wants to hit $1B in sales in a few years (which would double their revenue).
They originally were looking for a full-time person to help them with product placement, packaging, and pricing but after following me for a while they saw that I could accelerate their growth because I can touch so many parts of their business. That would be an exciting project. Wish me luck.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Despite the experience I described above with outsourcing marketing, advertising, and PR, I am still a huge fan of outsourcing. I have used this method for seven years and it allows me (and my companies) to accomplish so much more.
So when it came to launching The Profit Finders I outsourced as much as I could. I outsourced my website and the software primarily. That freed me up to guide the strategic direction without getting bogged down with what I consider tedious stuff.
I have had an amazing experience with virtual assistants. I’ve found them very professional and smart, and if one doesn’t work out, we can quickly part ways. I’ve been using them for seven years now, and thanks to their help, having their additional “hands” has given me the time to write seven books while managing three companies.
I use them for industry research, technical help with websites, squeeze pages, and automations.
I bootstrapped The Profit Finders every step of the way. I don’t see that changing.
We created our software because there wasn’t anything ready or available that did what I described throughout this interview. I didn’t wait for the software to be ready to start working with business owners.
My initial clients were people who had known me for a few years and saw what I did at my manufacturing company. No cold emails, or LinkedIn prospecting. Each time it was an organic conversation about how I had tripled revenue and lowered our break-even point by 70%, which ended with them saying to me, “I could use your help with that. How can I work with you?”
So scaling for The Profit Finders has been a process of consistently elevating the business acumen of the people who attend my workshops. Everyone gets served, and some of them become profit acceleration clients.
I’m moving people into my mastermind group so that I can serve more people, and so they can start learning from each other. I also like the networking aspect of the mastermind group. It’s very satisfying seeing the group members do business with each other thanks to the bonds of trust they’ve built in our group.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
What has worked for me so far has been networking. The people who have hired me have known me for years. They “know, like, and trust” me.
I have, again, tried “marketing experts” to see if someone can take the lead generation system off my plate.
As before, I have tried several and they have all produced zero sales.
I hired a company to send cold prospecting emails.
I hired a company to set up “virtual leadership roundtables.”
I hired a digital marketing firm to build ads and drive business owners to a Clickfunnels funnel.
PPC ads. Social media ads.
All of these hired guns did not produce a sale.
Like in the sit-stand desk company, I have created the sales myself.
What’s Working: In the last 3 months I have been producing 60-second videos for social media, I host my podcast, and I do weekly in-person workshops. These have led to new clients, new qualified leads that I am nurturing, and even a few invitations to join expert panels. So I’m going to continue doing these three things.
I keep the weekly in-person workshops to between 5 and 10 attendees. It’s a good size for engagement and networking. Sixty percent of attendees ask to do a business assessment session with me, and I’ll take on half of those as clients. Those aren’t my target ratios, I’m simply reporting how it has played out.
I can only directly link one client to my podcast, but there’s a lag there, so we’ll see how it turns out over time.
The social media videos have led to me getting invited to two expert panels and one publicly traded company advisory role.
Here’s the process I’ve seen in my business to nurture a prospect to become a paying customer:
- A prospect is exposed to my social media videos, attends my workshop, or is referred to me
- We have a 15-minute introductory call to assess their primary issue
- We hold a one-hour profit acceleration planning session over Zoom to give them a roadmap and picture of the financial growth potential we have together
- Prospect becomes a paying customer at the end of that session
I don’t need hundreds of clients, so these efforts, grounded in old-school human connection, have been serving me well.
One day I will focus on getting my Do-It-Yourself online learning academy in front of thousands of entrepreneurs, founders, and business leaders through digital amplification. This will be a scalable, low-ticket, recurring revenue stream.
But for now, I use it as a down-sell strategy for founders of startups who cannot afford my group mastermind accountability program or my 1:1 Fractional Chief Revenue Officer service.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
I am building a lifestyle business, which means I am crafting this to serve clients with impact regardless of whether I’m in Massachusetts or Ireland (my favorite vacation place and future 2nd home).
My overhead is $3,000, so my Gross Profit Margin is 78%. As I have said earlier, my ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) has been 0% so far.
My Group Mastermind is the service I am most excited about. It’s scalable and impactful for founders. It is priced so that the ROI for the client is 1,566% minimum.
I host three 60-minute online sessions per month:
- 5 pm EST on the 1st Tuesday of every month
- 12:00 noon EST the 2nd Wednesday of every month
- 8:00 am EST on the 3rd Thursday of every month
I chose those staggered times so I can accommodate people in different time zones and their busy schedules.
Members can attend one or all of the sessions based on their convenience. I have a 24/7 online platform so they can communicate outside of this group schedule. In that platform, I also post the recordings of the group meetings.
Founders who are invited to the group pay $497 on a month-to-month basis. That adds up to just under $6,000 over 12 months. Our goal is to create at least $100,000 in NEW profit for them. That’s where the 1,566% ROI comes in.
And many do much better. I have one that has increased profits by over 2,000%, and another over 1,100%, so they blew past the $100k target. A lot of it depends on how ambitious someone is, and how hungry they are to build their company. Accountability and action are lauded in our group.
These Masterminds have a short component where I teach one of the strategies, and then the rest of the time it’s an Ask Me Anything strategy session. We encourage people to report success stories and share their challenges.
It comes with a private community so that members can get other opinions and feedback, and get to know each other so we can build our internal economy. When you’re a member of this group and you need a service or an outside temporary expert on something, people don’t “Google” for a stranger; they hire their compadres in the Mastermind. Bonds are built as well as sales.
Get clear on your market-dominating position and your compelling offer first before you amplify your business with ads and other digital marketing tactics.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
One of the most helpful strategies in building both of my companies has been the joint venture strategy. Anyone who doesn’t take advantage of this strategy is missing a big opportunity to grow fast and economically.
I have built my companies by seeking out alliance (joint venture) partners who sell to the same group of people that I do. Offer them value and many will jump at the chance to refer business to you.
I would do this before you consider spending a dime on paid ads.
Also, what has worked for me is what I lead my clients through. Get clear on your market-dominating position. Create that statement, and build your business around it so that you can deliver on that promise.
Understand the conversation in your prospect’s head.
It goes like this: There is a problem that they have and don’t want, and there is a result they want but don’t have.
Solve for this and you have a healthy business and a founder who sleeps soundly at night.
Get clear on your market-dominating position and your compelling offer first before you amplify your business with ads and other digital marketing tactics. If you don’t, you are amplifying your mediocrity, and some businesses aren’t able to recover from that.
Different is better than best. Netflix put $6.2B behemoth Blockbuster out of business (very quickly I might add) because they innovated to offer the market something different; something that solved the problem Blockbuster consumers had but didn’t want, and gave them a result they wanted but didn’t have.
Also, you’ve seen me talk about strategy a lot today. I emphasize strategy over tactics. Tacticians are the people who bombard my email and LinkedIn message box every day with their shiny object sales. They know how to perform one tactic, and then they spend all day trying to sell that one tactic.
They are easy to spot because they start telling you in the email/LinkedIn message that you need their tactic to grow your business.
If your reaction to that is, “Really? How do you know? You’ve never met me, you don’t know what I’ve already tried, and you don’t know what my vision or direction is (because you didn’t ask),” then you stand on good ground. Abraham Maslow said, “When all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.” That’s right. That’s what these tacticians are. They all have their hammer and your business looks like a nail to them.
Strategy is where we listen and learn. We choose a direction based on where the founder wants to go. We run an analysis on how lucrative various strategies will be and in which order. Then we proceed.
The tactics can change based on many things. Strategy is a more constant effort. Tactics are disposable. Strategy is the decision to become a carpenter to make your living. The tools in the toolbox, the hammer, the circular saw, and the orbital sander, are the tactics.
You don’t need to default to expensive tactics just because others are doing it, or because that’s what’s being sold to you. There are many no-cost and low-cost strategies that one should try first. They have for me over and over again.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
My favorite tool by far is my proprietary software because I use it to calculate which profit acceleration strategies, and in what order sequence, will create the fastest and least expensive path to a specific profit and revenue number. I can forecast growth for my clients because the program is backed by a billion weighted algorithmic sequences.
My second favorite tool is my self-paced business academy. I don’t use a third-party platform for this either. I like the security of owning my platform here.
I use a third-party all-in-one platform for CRM, automation workflows, landing pages, websites, community, forms, social posting, and much more. It’s called Go High Level and it saves me easily $500 per month because I don’t need those other subscriptions.
For the podcast I host I use Spotify for Podcasters. It’s easy to use and allows me to publish on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and Cashflow Quadrant from the Rich Dad Series. I don’t know of any other books that explain the concepts, benefits, and value of business in such a simple and entertaining way.
Business Model Generation by Osterwalder Pigneur. This book provides a beautifully designed visual learning process to map out and test out various business models for your company.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Revenue feeds your ego. Profit feeds your family. So don’t get swept up in vanity metrics. A healthy and resilient business comes from profit. That’s how my manufacturing company survived the pandemic shutdown for six months and the slow recovery from the economy afterward.
Remember that marketing, advertising, social media, and public relations, are all amplifiers of your market-dominating position. If you don’t have a market-dominating position figured out before you spend money on PPC, SEO, PR, and digital marketing like email prospecting and blogging/vlogging, then you are amplifying your mediocrity.
That means you are telling the world you are like everyone else. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see companies make. They default to paying experts to help them amplify before they have figured out what problem their prospects have but don’t want, and the result their prospects want but don’t have.
When your market perceives you as just like everyone else, you are a commodity. Customers buy based on value, not price. When they perceive you as the same as everyone else, then you give them nothing else to make their decision on except price.
Work on your market-dominating position and innovate to solve industry-wide problems, rather than just trying to be “10% better” than your competition.
When it comes to saving you from wasting tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars on the launch of a new product, service, or company, use this line of questioning I share on LinkedIn.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I am always open to working with affiliates who want to make recurring revenue by writing or vlogging about my online profit academy, mastermind, or private CRO services. Just contact me through email, my website, or social DMs to discuss.
Where can we go to learn more?
I post 60-second video clips thrice weekly on LinkedIn, Twitter, and my Facebook business page. I get a lot of great feedback on those, so I urge you to follow me or connect on your preferred channel so you can see my battle-tested tips.
I also have a robust YouTube Channel where I house all of these short videos, plus my podcast interviews.
- Website
- YouTube
- Forecast Your Growth With The Profit Acceleration Simulator
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
