Dashboard: It’s the Data, Stupid

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard brought to you by our sponsor the great game of business I'm Lauren felin and I'm here with Gene marks welcome Jean welcome back to you Lauren great to talk to you great to talk to you again I miss you whenever we don't do this I miss you miss you miss you miss you shs Jean you wrote recently that Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year but it's not just about the sales what were you talking about no it is not and uh yeah this is a piece I I forget where I wrote this out the guardian entrepreneur entrepreneur it was entrepreneur that's exactly so um yeah I mean Black Friday is the end of this week um it is a huge shopping day followed by small business Saturday which some people are saying is even G to be even bigger than Black Friday I think that's great if you are a business and you are taking advantage of either Black Friday or small business Saturday uh here's you know here's what I've seen my my smartest clients do yeah they they sell and they have their promotions and they draw people in but their thing is about data Lauren you know I mean here is like these National events that's designed to draw in people into your place of business some you know hopefully many of them buy but some won't but regardless you absolutely should be collecting data on these people because it's not just about Black Friday or small business Saturday it is literally about January and February you know know you want revenue is today data is forever that is correct and and and I've learned this I mean basically you know you've got people coming in on Black Friday that um you can be uh you doing specific things with you can hey join my VIP Club you know or if you've got a loyalty app uh have them you know downloaded and they can get a special discount or if you're planning an event hey you know sign up here and you can come to an event you know that we're doing that that we're going to be giving away some free stuff as it is you know uh there there's a bunch of different ways you know you can and if you do this you can partner with other people in your in your area uh to do the same thing and maybe share the data but it's about the data right so is that okay yeah sure I mean as long as that's if somebody opts in with you it's okay but can you share it with someone else as long as you disclose it I mean you know if you can say like hey if you're opting in I'm also going to be sharing it with other you know you know businesses here is that is that okay and it's all opt in it has to be opt in so you you bring up a very very good point that you can't be stealing data from people you have to be you know asking for their permission but the bottom line is is that you got to get that data and and then that way um you can build up your community with them you can be emailing these people obviously uh you can be using their data uh to to reach out to them on social whether it's you know LinkedIn or Facebook you could be running lookalike Facebook campaigns against their data uh to like promote you know certain products and stuff that you're doing look alike meaning that Facebook knows the demographics of these customers and it'll find you another set of customers with similar demographics it'll find you those customers and another set of customers so uh if I upload your name uh as a lookalike campaign and then I do an ad for products that ad's going to go in front of you if you're on Facebook uh but then if there's other people that are like particularly goodlook former editors that live in prin and they happen to have that demographic on a on Facebook they'll be they'll be found as well and they will also be able to see your ads but you can't do any of this without collecting the data and that should be your biggest priority during good uh Black Friday and uh and small business Saturday does this have meaning for non retailers as well and and or for retailers not during the holiday season yes and no I mean when you're talking about B2B businesses it's really really tough to take take advantage of Black Friday and and you know and and and small business Saturday I mean let's admit these are Main Street promotional days you know what I mean but but leave aside that there there's a data play for B2B businesses as well isn't there yeah no doubt no doubt I mean I do that all the time I mean I I you know I look for data you know from clients and non-clients all the time and ask them to opt in and whatever I just I got I got you ever get like an email and like somebody you know you dopily puts like everybody's email address in the in the two cols you can see everybody's email you know yes I've been known to scrape that data and then reach out to people on that list and say hey we've got a great newsletter if you'd like to opt in you know if you'd like to subscribe to it here you go you know so um sometimes I get aggressive I I think the date is so important um to to look for leads and it is all about future work and that's why it's important to accumulate it it's kind of it's not the economy stupid anymore it's the data stupid it is it really is all right next topic you wrote a piece recently about how in their respective trials both Sam bankman freed and Donald Trump tried to blame their problems on their accountants I think you as an accountant yourself kind of took that personally am I right yeah it's accountant I don't know anything about it I mean I don't know my name is Donald Trump I run a big organization I don't i' never look at my financial statements you know I the accountant they put this stuff together and then you know it is what it is you when I see stuff like that I do I like I fume I really do it is maybe because I'm I'm grown up as an auditor so you know I kind of know what the drill is the the point of this piece in in the guardian is that you know Trump you know Samuel bankman free they're so wrong you know if you're running a company if it's your company it's your data it's your financial statements it's your tax returns when you have your accountant prepare your tax return at the end of the year um and they sign off on it and they they sign the return as the preparer of the tax return underneath your signature because it's your tax return trust me when I tell you you don't have to trust me on this if there's a problem in your tax return the IRS ain't going after your account they're going after you right it's your tax return now you know maybe you can turn around and go after your accountant but that's between you and your accountants you know well let let me ask you this you know I I I want to get past Sam Pegman freed and Donald Trump and and discuss just as you just did the the case of somebody who who owns a business if you if you're giving your accountant fraudulent numbers clearly that's on you but but here's what it was interesting to me about your column you wrote but let's say there's a problem with your tax return maybe your tax professional made a mistake or was negligent or wasn't up to date on the rules let's and let's say this problem resulted in you owing more money to the IRS or even if serious enough it results in the IRS taking you to court who who's ultim ultimately responsible for this problem is it your accountant nope it's you you and my question did you mean that that there's no recourse whatsoever is there no no no no I meant with the IRS just with the IRS you're saying you signed it they're going to come after you yeah but if your if your accountant was negligent you then have to deal with them that is correct and that's a whole separate issue and one that you know you may or may not Prevail on but the it still does not beely the fact that the IRS are the one they're going to come after you they couldn't care less about your accountant they just care less that there's wrong information on your tax return and it's your tax return you signed it and by the way that has to do with us as individuals as well as our business uh people don't realize that when you have outside people that prepare your your your these documents um their liability is is limited to what you're going after I mean the the the whoever you're sending these documents are they're they're only concerned about you by way the same thing has to do with financial statements I mean you you have an accountant they do a review or an audit of your financials you send that to the bank first of all if you read the auditor's opinion or the review opinion it basically says you know we've done this work but we take absolutely no responsibility for it I mean it's literally in their audit opinion and on top of that when you have an outside accounting firm that you're using um they're going to ask you to sign what's called a representation letter you know it is a standard practice in any audit or review and that represent letter basically says me I'm the owner I'm responsible for the financials I provided you with all the right information I you disclosed everything to you the accountant I gave you all that you needed to do to do your job and in the end this is all on me and you sign that representation letter before they issue their opinion it's basically the accountant saying hey uh you know we did our stuff but man this is yours you know and we a we're going to wipe our heads clean and if we find anywhere that you didn't provide the right information or it was incorrect or whatever then you just lost your case if you try and sue us I'm only telling you that's the way the accounting profession works so you're on your own Bob well let me ask you this then if most business owners are not accountants you you happen to be one which I'm sure is a big advantage to you but if you're not an accountant and you're not familiar with tax returns and you're not really qualified to make sure that they're done properly when your accountant gets gives it back to you and tells you to sign it should you just sign it or should you hire another accountant to review it and make sure it's okay I mean no you don't have to hire another accountant but I I could tell you this much whenever I hear people say like ah you know I don't understand accounting or I'm not you know whatever you know it's not you know it's a mystery to me it it's such a bunch of I mean my son is a mechanical engineer okay so he helps design he works for like Microsoft and I've seen some of the designs that he looks at that oh my God it is like it's like you know cryptic I can't even understand how these Engineers do stuff you know doctors the same way trust me when I tell you accountants are not that smart the work that we do are it's not that difficult to understand people like they they put such a high level of like expertise on accountants um as if we we we were doing something that's magic engineers and doctors you perform magic not accountants and the reason why I tell you this is because if you're going to run a business business you need to know accounting you need to know the math you need to have a basic understanding of your financial statements and your tax returns and how they work enough to ask questions about them ask any investor any CEO competent CEO they understand their numbers and trust me most CEOs are not accountants they're basically sales and marketing people that made their way up through the organization but they're smart enough to understand what their what their p&l says and another comment on that if you're a CEO of a company and there's you know you you have your quarterly earnings call you know you've got analysts and people that are asking you the CEO questions about your financial statements they have an expectation that you understand what's in your financials they're not you can't be like oh well the accountants do that I don't really get it you know I know I'm the CEO of Target but uh well we're not talking about Target here well any company it's the same thing well listen Lauren listen you you're you're you know you're not a mechanic you're driving your car the mechanic forgot to put in a piece a part and you break down on the highway in the middle of the night okay who's suffering because of that your mechanic's fast asleep where are you you're out there in the car in the middle of the night you get me you get me no I I I understand completely I'm just saying my expectations for the expertise level uh when it comes to accounting of a Target CEO versus a Main Street small business CEO is is is different shouldn't be any different shouldn't be any different you're Main Street CEO you have you believe think about your you have a lot of clients do most of your clients uh fit that description my good ones do yeah my good ones do understand and what percentage is that yeah uh that's a tough one what percentage of my clients are are really competent it's always the 2080 there you go okay that's my point I'm not say yeah I'm not saying that the majority of of businesses do that but I am saying that they're wrong for not okay I'll buy that uh last topic you wrote recently that you are a big fan of shrink flation as a pricing strategy uh tell us what shrinkflation is and then defend yourself why is it okay yeah well if you buy a bag of Doritos Doritos used to be 9.75 ounces a couple years ago now it's 9.25 ounces but the price is and do you know that because you're a big fan of duritos no I know that because I did some research okay okay if you buy charman toilet paper they're Mega rolls right they're 50% less sheets of toilet paper than what you saw a couple of years ago but the price is the same if you order if you get chicken like nuggets from no chicken wings from dominoes you're literally getting a couple of less chicken wings in your carry out order yeah if you're getting chicken wings from dominoes you deserve what you get I couldn't agree with you more who is getting chicken wing from dominoes I mean it's a pizza chain so yeah you get what you deserve but the bottom line is is that many major brands and a lot of my smartest clients have realize that a pricing strategy a good pricing strategy is shrinkflation um you go to a hotel nowadays a chain hotel used to be they would they would provide housekeeping so you try and find a housekeeper while you're living there you have to like you know where are they they would leave chocolates on your bed and individual TR you know gifts and trinkets in the bathroom now it's like big tubs of shampoo and body wash you know it is it it's all a um it's all sh inflation it's just delivering a little bit less for the same price and restaurants are a b you know I ask anybody Running a Restaurant you know two years ago you know you're now you're getting four meatballs instead of three oh sorry getting three meatballs instead of four right you get the point well let me ask you this you wrote in the piece if this sounds unethical or immoral it's not in fact it's being practiced all over the place by some of the world's largest Brands and I just gave you a few is is that the right test if Walmart does it it's okay are you saying that Walmart might have uh you know some business practices that you know one would I I just I'm not sure that they're the north star that we should all follow not a bad comment I get it I mean I don't want to hold up to our largest Brands as being like the uh you know the the the uh saviors of ethics and morality in this country but they're doing it they are doing it and and it is not I guess the the point that I'm making is that it's certainly not illegal I don't think it's unethical either I think it's well there you go get no one's breaking any laws again that seems like a low bar fair enough but listen you know for you you're you're selling a product or a service at a price and uh you can determine what that product or service is it's completely by the way well I've I've spoken about this to other groups and they'll be like um like manufacturing groups and they'll be like okay well how do we you know okay it's fine for a restaurant maybe or you know Doritos but what about us and one big area I see people practicing shrinkflation just to give you a a real life example B2B is Freight you know I mean used to be a few years ago you'd be like yeah we'll ship it to you anywhere or we'll pay for the cost of shipping now I'm seeing a lot of my clients being like yeah you know shipping now not included you know or only if you're within a 10 mile radius price is the same but shipping's not includ that's your inflation that's the same concept I I think in that case is pretty clear what the business is doing and no one's getting fooled uh by it I think the the danger here I mean obviously people have the right to set a price um and they can set it where they want you don't want people trying to fool their customers that's probably not going to end well do you share that concern yeah I I don't know if it's a real trying to fool customers I think actually um I think some people can make the argument that they're trying to best serve their customers uh if a customer has a budget this you know it's funny when you talk about pricing things like when I price out jobs Lauren um like say like somebody wants to buy a CRM product from me and we'll be like okay well to do the implementation it's going to be $5,000 and then they come back and they're like we don't that's too much you know and so then we'll be like well you know how much can you spend we can spend 3,000 okay well then we'll do this for 3,000 a little bit less you know what I mean I don't think that's any different than a restaurant tour saying uh you know you say listen your budget is $15 for spaghetti and meatballs I want to make sure I keep it within your budget but I'm going to just give you a few Le one less meatball you know what I mean so you know it that's what it is they're they're they're matching whatever the budget is for people and these times of you know uh higher costs and and you know trying to make it more accommodating otherwise people just walk away if they start charging 17 or 18 bucks because of that meatball uh some people be like it's too much and then now does the restaurant tour not get his business but the customer doesn't get any meatballs at all so long as everybody knows what's going on I mean the business has the right to charge what it wants to charge and the customer has the right to walk away yeah so now and I'm just seeing seeing a lot of businesses charge you know same price for a little bit less is there a version of shrink flation for Consultants like you yeah less Services I mean uh for example uh we when we we used to include travel time you know or not charge for it now we charge for travel time you know what I mean so it's it's the same kind of cost it's the same thing you know what I mean it's like but you let your customer know that um well you know not on you know only if it's changed with an existing customer I mean you know when you have new customers and new clients they don't know any difference do you know what I'm saying like they don't know what you were charging or not charging for before you're just saying this is what we're charging for now right right but but but they know I mean you give them a price and you say we're also going to charge you for travel yeah yeah so that's completely aboveboard yeah that's exactly right um all right I guess we're kind of on the same page there I guess I'm G you you're way more ethical than I am okay we'll just agree on that okay okay I would have you babysit my kids if I had grandkids okay so a shck I'd do it because they're all in their 20s right yeah exactly we ain't seen any grandkids for a while you met my kids you're not gonna happen your kids are delightful um what are you working on Jean do you uh know what you're going to be publishing this coming week I'm gonna be busy on Thanksgiving week I'm going to be uh this week I'm I'm writing about uh uh what what Philly businesses in a certain neighborhood are doing for small business Saturday uh I'm writing whether or not biomics has had an impact on the state of Pennsylvania businesses uh I'm I'm I'm going to write for the hill uh this week on uh you and I will have a good conversation about this about some of the people in 2024 who will most impact your business um so I uh I've got a few names that will literally based on their activities are going to impact me personally and you uh so we'll talk about that as well and I'm writing a piece for the Chicago Daily what who it's Chicago Daily Herald on on work from home so I'm gonna be busy this week doing a lot of is there really a Chicago Daily Harald there is it does exist and there are like six or seven readers of it and they love it okay and I'll be on H Fox News on H Thursday and Fox News again on Friday they call me when during the you're gonna be on Fox news on Thanksgiving Day yeah Thanksgiving Day and Friday because they call me when they can't get any other guest I'm like 87 in line and they're like I think that's Fox News version of shrink flation on you get Jean Marks today we're delivering like you know a little bit less content but for the same price we're gonna have Gan on so it'll be 11: am on Friday Eastern and then three o'clock I'm sorry 11: am on Thanksgiving Day and 3 o'clock on Friday okay no politics we're talking business okay no offense I will not be watching on Thanksgiving day I got you I'll send you a clip okay Lauren thank you Jean Jean Marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times the Chicago Daily Herald for an entrepreneur you can also hear them on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor Jean host two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford this episode was brought to you by the great game of business which helps businesses use an open book management system to help build healthier companies you can learn more at Great game.com thank you Jean I'm grateful that you take the time to do this as often as you do have a great Thanksgiving I love it you too Lauren we will see you again next week I hope Happy Thanksgiving everybody [Music]