Steve and David spend this episode on Profit First, the small business finance book by Mike Michalowicz. The core idea: set money aside before you spend it, not after.

They trace the system back to depression-era thrift, compare “profit” against “long-term savings” as motivating words, and work through the mechanics of running a business on smaller bank accounts and smaller plates.

There’s also a look at email newsletter platforms shrinking their free tiers, and a 1990s cider ad starring Leslie Nielsen, tested against the question of whether comedy still sells products the way it used to.

Get ready to take notes.

Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes

01:45 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
Grandma Already Knew This

David put Steve onto Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First. Before the mechanics of the system, they discuss its origins: the envelope method, setting money aside for bills the moment it arrives, which Michalowicz traces to his mother’s own budgeting. Steve and David connect this to a habit common before entrepreneurship culture prioritised looking successful over managing money well.

Michalowicz describes a networking event where everyone tells strangers business is going great, while the same people admit to close friends that it’s hard. Steve and David discuss the gap between appearance and reality, from upgrading a car lease to keep up, to simply not admitting a business is under pressure. David notes that small, honest peer groups, ten or twelve people, are less common in Australian small business than they could be.

Michalowicz uses Parkinson’s Law as an example: smaller dinner plates lead to smaller portions without anyone noticing. He applies the same principle to money, arguing that constraint changes behaviour more reliably than willpower does.

This is an episode of Mike’s podcast, from which we take a couple of snippets.

12:45 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Set Up the Envelopes, Skip the Guesswork

Multiple bank accounts, set up like envelopes, each with a job: profit, owner’s pay, tax, and operating expenses. Michalowicz starts small, around one percent into a profit account to begin with, increasing the percentage as the habit builds.

David describes learning a version of this himself, not from the book but from a phone call to his accountant the first time a large consulting payment landed. Fifteen minutes working out percentages for tax, super, and long-term savings, and those percentages have stuck ever since. He says “profit” doesn’t motivate him as a word, but “long-term savings for when I’m seventy” does.

Michalowicz’s system also covers cutting costs without cutting capability, building a buffer under your expense target rather than aiming right at it, and the idea that debt is only paid off by becoming profitable, not by waiting until you feel ready to be profitable. Steve and David note that the book is dense with step-by-step detail that doesn’t suit audio, and recommend a print or Kindle copy for anyone planning to apply the system.

26:00 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
The Shrinking Free Tier

Email newsletter platforms have been reducing what’s included for free. Mailchimp’s free contact limit shrank over the years, MailerLite became the alternative, and then it dropped its own free threshold to 250 contacts, locking out anyone over that mark entirely.

Steve outlines the options he’s tested since: Brevo, which allows unlimited contacts but caps each send at 300 recipients, and sending newsletters directly through WordPress once you’re on a hosting setup with proper mail deliverability in place. Each option suits different circumstances, depending on whether email is a core sales channel or, as it is for Talked About Marketing, one channel among several.

31:15 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Puns Sold Cider, For A While

A 1990s American ad campaign for Red Rock Cider featured Leslie Nielsen reprising his Police Squad character in a pun-drenched parody called Fraud Squad. Steve and David discuss the writing, which lands product benefits inside the gags rather than around them.

The campaign won awards and drove an early sales spike, then sales faded, and the brand folded by the mid-1990s. David notes that cider as a category tends to boom and bust in cycles, in Australia as much as the US, so novelty may buy a brand its moment without buying loyalty. Steve and David discuss what that means for a campaign built on novelty and star power: it may be worth treating the spike as temporary rather than assuming it will carry a brand long term.