How to Survive a Downturn with Jessica Loseke

Find Rocky Lalvani @ www.ProfitComesFirst.com  or email him at [email protected]

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Your revenue looks close to what it did two years ago. Your bank account does not feel like it. If sales seem steady but cash keeps getting tighter, you are not losing your mind, and you might be sitting on the exact problem this episode names.

In This Episode:

• How to tell a temporary sales dip from a real structural shift, before it is obvious
• Why flat revenue can hide a collapsing margin
• The five year warehouse lease signed months before the industry cracked, and what waiting cost
• Cutting staff through attrition instead of one hard decision, and what that actually looks like
• The freight bill audit that found a quiet ten dollar charge on 544 shipments
• Why a FIFO inventory costing system broke without anyone noticing, for years
• Where EOS had to bend to survive hypergrowth and then a downturn

Key Takeaways:

• Revenue and volume can look almost identical year over year while gross margin dollars collapse underneath.
• The decisions that feel too painful to make on time get more expensive the longer they are delayed.
• A recurring charge below your audit threshold can add up to thousands of dollars a year.
• A rigid operating system still has to flex to the business.
• Delegating a financial system's setup without understanding the mechanics can cost you for years.

About Jessica Loseke:

If you'd told Jess Loseke a decade ago that she'd scale a barrel company with AI, she would have laughed. Now it's the thing people ask her to speak about.

Jess is the co-founder and CEO of Midwest Barrel Co., the e-commerce barrel marketplace and international supplier she and her husband Ben built from a storage shed on $50 and a dream. She's an Enneagram 8 who would rather shake up an old industry than tiptoe around it, and she's spent the last decade proving a traditional, handshake business can run on modern digital tools and AI. These days she helps other founders modernize the old without losing the human part that made it work. Jess is mom to two boys, Theo and Brooks, and devoted staff to the shop dog Willett. And she's still proudly slingin' damn good barrels.

Links:

Websites: https://jessloseke.com/, midwestbarrelco.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessloseke/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebarrelgirl/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebarrelgirl

Profit Blueprint Calculator I Profit Comes First: https://lp.profitcomesfirst.com/profitblueprintcalc-page

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@profitanswerman

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Music provided by Junan from Junan Podcast

Any financial advice is for educational purposes only and you should consult with an expert for your specific needs.