The Hidden Risks Draining Your Business Profits With Pat Mancuso

Pat Mancuso is the CEO of Mancuso Consulting Group, a firm that helps business owners increase profitability, recover tax credits, and build stronger organizations through strategic consulting and leadership development. A serial entrepreneur, coach, and speaker with more than 30 years of experience, Pat has launched multiple successful companies and coached thousands of business leaders. Through consulting, speaking, and his proprietary RSTMM® system, he helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses, strengthen leadership teams, and create sustainable long-term growth.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [5:20] Pat Mancuso explains how costly blind spots affect business owners
• [10:35] Why exit and tax planning should begin years before selling
• [14:37] What buyers evaluate before acquiring a business
• [19:15] Building systems and processes that increase company value
• [25:33] Pat shares how business valuations guide growth decisions
• [32:06] How companies may qualify for R&D tax incentives
• [38:17] Restructuring healthcare plans to reduce employer costs
• [43:08] Pat explains how healthcare savings can benefit employees

In this episode…

Many business owners focus so intensely on growth that they overlook the risks quietly eroding their profits and company value. From inadequate protections to missed tax opportunities, how can owners uncover these costly blind spots before they cause lasting damage?

Pat Mancuso, a seasoned entrepreneur and business strategist with more than 30 years of experience, says owners must proactively prepare, protect, and position their companies for long-term prosperity. He highlights how weak operational systems, insufficient asset protection, overlooked tax strategies, and rising healthcare expenses can expose a business to significant financial losses. Addressing these risks early allows owners to retain more of their earnings while building a stronger and more valuable company. Pat recommends understanding the business’s current valuation and creating an exit plan years before a potential sale. He also emphasizes working with qualified specialists who can identify opportunities and vulnerabilities that traditional advisers may overlook.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Pat Mancuso, CEO of Mancuso Consulting Group, to discuss the hidden risks draining business profits. They explore costly blind spots, tax and exit planning, and strategies to reduce healthcare expenses. Pat also shares how stronger systems, asset protection, and business valuations can increase a company’s long-term value.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Pat Mancuso on LinkedIn
• Mancuso Consulting Group
• The Mancuso Method
• Owner’s Profit Playbook
• Keller Williams
• R&D Quick Check
• ClaimLinx
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
• The Business Owner’s Emergency Survival Guide For the A.I. Revolution by Dan S. Kennedy
• Get Scalable: The Operating System Your Business Needs To Run and Scale Without You by Ryan Deiss
• Shift: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times by Gary Keller, Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan
• Magnetic Marketing: How To Attract A Flood Of New Customers That Pay, Stay, and Refer by Dan S. Kennedy
• How to Beat the IRS, Legally by Dennis Noss, MSc. IRS Enroller Agent and Edward A. Lyon, JD
• Unlocking Success: Inspiring Tales of Resilience by Jack Canfield

Special mentions:

• Ed Lyon on LinkedIn
• Scott Gabehart on LinkedIn
• Brian Pearson on LinkedIn
• Gary Keller on LinkedIn
• Dan Kennedy on LinkedIn
• Jay Papasan on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “[SaaS & Healthcare Series] Solving Healthcare’s Inventory Blind Spots With Michael Prokopis” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “The Engine Behind Growing From 9 To 60 Healthcare Clinics With Peter Cunningham, Founder and CEO of Evolve Healthcare Marketing” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Improving Healthcare Through Patient Engagement with Wes Michael of Rare Patient Voice” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Author Series] Master Your Craft With Jay Papasan of The 1 Thing: on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• The Tax Game Most Business Owners and High Earners Are Losing (And Don’t Even Know It) on Owner’s Profit Playbook
• War Room Mastermind
• “Building a Business That Transcends Beyond You” on Owner’s Profit Playbook
• “Bridging the Gap Between Personal Freedom and Financial Success” on Owner’s Profit Playbook
• “Bridging the Gap Between Personal Freedom and Financial Success” on Owner’s Profit Playbook
• “Your SMB’s Hidden Cash: Unlock R&D Tax Credits” on Owner’s Profit Playbook
• “Your Exit Plan is a Lie” on Owner’s Profit Playbook

Quotable moments:

• “Sometimes we’re getting information from the wrong people. Sometimes we’re not even looking at information.”
• “Every business owner needs to have the address of what their exit is. They can always change the address.”
• “But in terms of proprietary things, the value is in their client base and in the people and their reputation.”
• “All those things will either compound value or reduce value. And we have tools to help business owners with that.”
• “Everything is not new. It’s just a different way to look at it, like AI.”

Action steps:

1. Identify your business blind spots: Reviewing risks, financial data, and overlooked information can prevent costly mistakes and profit loss.
2. Begin exit planning several years early: Early preparation creates more opportunities to reduce taxes and increase company value.
3. Strengthen operational systems and documentation: Clear processes can reduce fraud, employee disputes, customer issues, and acquisition risks.
4. Review tax and cost-saving opportunities proactively: Exploring eligible incentives and healthcare structures can preserve significant cash flow.
5. Assess and protect your business assets: Proper insurance, legal agreements, and asset protection strategies can limit financial exposure.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Pat Mancuso. You can check him out at MancusoCG.com. And Pat, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. And people should not miss our episode because we’re going to talk about blind spots, blind spots of business owners, and you have a wealth of knowledge over, you know, I don’t want to age you too much, but several decades and it’s going to be very valuable. And I had to stop you a few times because I wanted to hear what you were saying before we hit record and to go in deep with exit planning, tax strategy, and just savings from a business owner. So we’ll get into it.

But a couple episodes that are interesting, you know, we were talking about health care, right? And so I was looking at some of the interesting health care interviews I did. I had Michael Prokopis, CEO of DARVIS and their AI driven healthcare inventory management system. So people can check that out. It’s like SaaS combined with healthcare. I talked with Pete Cunningham, CEO of Evolve Healthcare Marketing. They help grow healthcare practices. A lot of private equity actually hires them to grow their portfolio of companies. So that’s an interesting one. What’s another one? Oh, Wes Michael of Rare Patient Voice. And they basically help pair people with rare diseases to get, you know, different studies that are out there, right? And so the recruitment using potential AI and diagnosing rare diseases, and they help kind of connect patients with these different studies that can help them. So check out that and many more on InspiredInsider.com.

This episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that in a few ways. One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, accountability, and the full execution and production. Number two, we’re an easy button for a company’s gifting, so we make gifting, staying top of mind could be for clients, partners, prospects, even staff from a culture perspective. Pat, people just send us the addresses. We do everything else and it’s not like we send a tchotchke or a mug. It’s actually, I like getting food. So we send food. So it could be every 3 to 4 months for five years potentially.

And so, you know, that’s the number one thing in my life is relationships. And Pat knows this. We’ve known each other for a while. I’m always looking at ways to give to my relationships, and personally, I found no better way to profile the people I admire in the podcast and send them sweet treats in the mail. So you can go to Rise25.com. You can also email [email protected].

And I am excited to introduce Pat Mancuso. He’s an entrepreneur, consultant, tax mitigation strategist, and he’s really dedicated to helping business owners grow smarter, retain more of their hard earned profits. And he’s the founder of Mancuso Consulting Group. He brings over 30 years of real world experience. He’s been in the trenches in leadership business, you know, tax planning, exit strategy. And actually, for a few decades, he facilitated and delivered sales and leadership training across North America for Keller Williams. If you don’t know Keller Williams, Keller Williams Realty is the second largest real estate company in North America. Almost 8000 associates. So he’s kind of cut his teeth on a lot of different things there, but ultimately helps owners increase both cash flow and company value. Also, check out his podcast. He’s the host of the Owner’s Profit Playbook podcast, where he shares conversations focusing on many things but profit leaks inside businesses. So Pat, thanks for joining me.

Pat Mancuso: 04:18

Oh my gosh, Jeremy, thank you so much. I’m just excited to be here. And I do need to do something because I do have a big following at Keller Williams. They’re like 170,000 agents now. So that’s 80,000.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:30

Okay. We need to update your LinkedIn because that’s where I got it.

Pat Mancuso: 04:32

Just went from 80 to 170K..

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:35

Seriously. Wow.

Pat Mancuso: 04:37

No, no I’m kidding. No, but yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:40

It’s all because of your training.

Pat Mancuso: 04:42

Oh, I wish, I wish, but no, I’m super excited about being here. And I just want to obviously acknowledge you and John and the team at Rise25 and you talked about the gifting process. I’m a recipient of that. And you also do and produce our podcast. So we’re just excited about the opportunity to be here today.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:05

I love it. Let’s start off with, you know, I know at the beginning we were talking about before we hit record blind spots, blind spots of business owners. What are I mean, you are talking a lot on a daily and weekly basis. What are some of the blind spots you’re seeing?

Pat Mancuso: 05:20

Well, I think first it’s Jeremy, it’s important to define what a blind spot is. So a business owner understands it. We all have blind spots, right? And sometimes those blind spots can be we’re not getting the right information. Sometimes we’re getting information from the wrong people.

Sometimes we’re not even looking at information. And because, you know, a lot of business owners are very busy. They’re running, you know, noon, you know, morning, noon, night weekends, and they’re just not slowing down enough. So, you know, a blind spot is something you can’t see. You might not understand it. You maybe got the wrong information. And you know, business owners have blind spots many times in many parts of their business.

And, you know, we’re talking with, you know, 2 to 3 business owners a day in various parts of their business, whether it’s, you know, tax mitigation, health care, cost savings, whether it’s organizational development, whether it’s profitability, whether it’s sales, we we’re having conversations every day. And every one of those conversations is a story for me that I get to share with people about those blind spots that people have. It’s not bad. It’s just a blind spot. And we all have them. Unfortunately, though, sometimes blind spots cost us a lot of money and money that we worked really hard to earn.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:42

What are some specifics that you’ve seen when you’re on the phone with people?

Pat Mancuso: 06:46

Oh, you know, I was sharing one with you recently. That was incredibly painful but is very common. And so think if you’re a business owner who has employees, which would be a lot of business owners. Now think if you’re a business owner who has employees who those employees maybe use company vehicles or use their own vehicles to do company business. There is a liability there that many business owners either are not aware of, or maybe they’re aware of it, but they’re not aware of the extent.

So I recently had a conversation with a past client of ours who we did some work for previously in the tax credit world, and they shared a story with me that was probably about 3 or 4 years ago that one of their employees, great employee, never had any issues with this employee was driving one of their company vehicles, got distracted, not intentionally. We get distracted all the time. It wasn’t even a cell phone issue. It was just, they got distracted. They looked down, and by the time they looked back up.

They were in the process of rear ending a vehicle with two participants, two people in the car. Unfortunately, one of the participants perished and one of the other people in the car. I know your eyes lit up. Isn’t that crazy? And one of the other participants is disabled for the rest of their life.

Now, this particular business owner had an umbrella policy which, if you do not have an umbrella policy in your business, make a note, you have to have an umbrella policy because absent an umbrella policy, you have no protection. This individual had an umbrella policy. The level of the umbrella policy will, I’m just going to disguise numbers so people could never connect it. But let’s say it’s 5 million. Okay. How much is a life worth? How much is being disabled for the rest of your life or. Well, that umbrella policy only covered so much. And the challenge for this particular business owner is they didn’t have their businesses in a trust, which meant their businesses were vulnerable to additional mitigation. And that additional mitigation is now being paid out based upon a settlement over five years. They had no idea they should have their business in a trust.

Now, I’m guessing 70 to 80% of the business owners listening to this conversation right now are going, why do I need to have my businesses trust? What is a trust? And I don’t have my business in a trust and the reality of that is one of the things that we talk about with business owners is asset protection. Now in full transparency? Jeremy, I’m not an attorney. I’m not a licensed CPA. I’m not a licensed financial planner. However, I have enough education and enough smarts to build relationships and partnerships with some of the smartest people, the most recognized people, and some people who have actually built some of these industries. So I don’t need to know. I don’t need to be the expert. I just need to be the quarterback and have the conversations with business owners. And that’s what we do every day.

And so that conversation that I was just sharing with you, that particular client is now a client going through a process with us where we’ve put them in touch with the attorney who’s going to build out the trust. This individual also is looking for tax mitigation. So they’re really in my world, there are many times as a conversation with a business owner may lead to 2 or 3 blind spots that we help them fix.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:16

Well, I know Pat, you know, you have this 360 Mancuso Method, right? Which is prepare, protect, prosper. And that kind of falls under the protect piece. Anything else in the protect that we should talk about?

[Continue to Page 2 ]

Pat Mancuso: 10:35

Tax mitigation. So a lot of business owners have not even thought about what exit looks like. So just by coincidence, I had a conversation earlier today. I was interviewing somebody on our podcast. And John, the conversation was such, let me just stop because we’re not live, right?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 10:56

No we are. Let me keep going. That’s fine. I’m actually going to pull up. Yeah, the podcast here just so people can check it out.

Pat Mancuso: 11:04

But yeah, so I was having a conversation today with a business owner and we were talking about he, he asked me in name again a podcast, but Rich Monroe, who did a great job today talking about.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 11:21

The thousands I’ve done. Pat. I can’t keep track of all of them.

Pat Mancuso: 11:23

I know. I know, but like I, I have this, I have this, you know, brain freeze. But anyways, Rich was talking to me about a potential associate of his who’s selling a business. And one of the things that a lot of business owners don’t understand is that first business owners get frustrated and that’s when they sell. They’re like, I don’t want to do this anymore. Or they get a tap on the shoulder and somebody is going to offer them more money than they ever thought they could get.

But many times, no matter what the circumstances are, business owners are not prepared for exit in terms of maximizing their value, mitigating their taxes, and planning enough in advance. I work with Ed Lyon, who’s one of the most recognized tax attorneys in the country. He’s been on our podcast before, and he’s our tax mitigation and tax planning attorney. And Ed’s been recognized as one of the most funniest tax attorneys by CNN in the country. But in these conversations with Ed, the fact of the matter is most businesses start 3 to 5 years before they think about selling to maximize their minimization of tax. In other words, I can do certain things three years out, four years out, five years out, even two years out, one year out. And I can even do some tax mitigation after I sell. But if you go backwards to forwards from when I sell to five years out, I get less tax mitigation if I’m not planning proactively.

The second thing with exits is that many times business owners don’t understand the metrics that a buyer is going to look at when they want to purchase the property or purchase the business. So, you know, just as an example, simple example, if you have two clients who make up 60% of your revenue, that’s pretty good. A lot of business owners go, yay! That’s awesome. I’m dealing with less clients. The problem is if 1 or 2 of them close, sell, go, you’re like, there’s no value there. So we were looking at buying an accounting firm about a year ago and great business, established business, established relationships. And they hadn’t raised their prices in like five years, but they raised them right before they put the business on the market. Well, as a prospective buyer of that business, I looked at that and I went, okay, well, there’s not enough maturity. There’s not enough curing of that. How many of those clients are now going to be client in the future.

So there’s a lot of things around exit that people are not preparing for. And you always use this analogy, like, if I’m going to get in the car and go drive someplace I haven’t been to, I put the address in the GPS. Every business owner needs to have the address of what their exit is. They can always change the address. They can always go in a different direction. But without that, every decision they make, every day, they have no idea if that’s moving closer to that exit or farther away.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:10

I want to keep going into the 360 method, and we’ll go into prosper and prepare. But before we go into that, I’m curious, you know, you were looking at buying this company. What are the factors that you look at? And you mentioned one of them is there like a risk of like client concentration? What are the other things you look at to see this is a business we want to buy or don’t want to buy?

Pat Mancuso: 14:37

Well, so one of the first things we did, and this would be always what you’d want to do is you want to look at the numbers and understand the numbers. In this case, one of the first things that I did after I acquired their financials is I went to a CPA who I have a great relationship with, and they buy businesses. And I said, okay, tell me about this business. Tell me about the numbers. Tell me about the economics. They were able to share with me what the average value of a client is in the terms of the tax client that these folks had.

And so we looked at their numbers and they were under the market in pricing. Now, on one hand, that’s an opportunity, but on the other hand, that could be a potential risk because if we raise their fees to the market now, we may lose the potential revenue base that we had there. So that was the first thing. The second thing was in terms of their client base, what were they doing for marketing? And the fact of the matter is they were doing nothing respectfully, very little in terms of were they offering additional services? Were they creating referrals? Were they sharing value adds to their clients along the way? Were they bringing them different, you know, additional tax strategies like what we were talking about, some of the things we do for companies and this individual who owned the firm, I mean, amazing CPA, however, said, well, I never heard of that before. Well, if they’ve never heard of it before, that means their clients aren’t taking advantage of it if they could.

So that was one of the things. We looked at the employees. Some of the employees were at a point where they may not stay with the firm. And so we were buying, you know, when you really look at that type of business, there’s not a lot of asset value in terms of, you know, there’s not a software value. You know, there’s not equipment value desks, maybe computers, maybe some software. But in terms of proprietary things, the value is in their client base and in the people and their reputation. Great reputation. The challenge for the people was some of those people would probably leave because they have been with the owner for so long. The owner was willing to stay on, but those were some things that we looked at. We looked at receivables. What did they have out there in terms of outstanding receivables.

And so we actually were pretty far along the way. And then another offer came in and we’re like, hey, nope, we’re not going to compete on a business. I mean, respectfully, there’s accounting firms all over the place. And then we got a call about two months after and that offer fell apart. So we didn’t end up buying it, but it was a good process to go through because mostly I’ve done startups I haven’t bought into business. I’ve looked at a lot of businesses, but when we looked at what we were doing in that realm, we felt like, yeah, we could go buy an accounting firm versus we could actually make a great relationship with firms who do this tax mitigation, tax planning. And that’s how we got in a relationship with Ed Lyon with Excel Empire.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:37

Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that because it sounds like it’s a tough decision. And you probably, you may have made an offer at that point, but you weren’t going to compete because I could see, like you said, average value of the client is low. That’s an opportunity and a risk. The marketing is not great. Well, you know a lot about marketing. So there’s an opportunity but then employees are leaving. That’s a risk. So it’s like, you know, okay, what are the advantages and disadvantages here? And it sounds like the disadvantages kind of outweighed it.

Pat Mancuso: 18:07

Well, and I’ve been very fortunate I got into Roland Frasier’s world and Ryan Deiss’ world about three years ago. And there the whole model that they have is acquiring businesses to build growth in businesses versus starting new businesses. So, you know, roll ups are a part of that, platform companies are a part of that. So I’ve learned a lot in that in the mastermind and those relationships and you know, there’s just a lot to know there. So if on the buyer side, I need to know and if I’m on the seller side, I need to know. And so there’s just a lot of resources as part of that group as well. Ryan, by the way, both Ryan and Roland have been on our podcast previously.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:52

They’ll have to check that out. So I was looking at Pat the protect and you mentioned some of these things piece, which is annual tax planning, long term tax planning. You mentioned some of the insurance stuff. And then what about on the, you know, the prepare side?

Pat Mancuso: 19:15

So the prepare side ties into the exit side. So one of the first things that buyers look at of a company is what is their operations? What are their systems? What are their processes? And so many businesses, if you think about how a lot of businesses start. You know, I always have this kind of conversation because I’ve heard this so many times. We started the business based upon the bonfire in the backyard, and we had a couple of cocktails when we were doing it. And we’re entrepreneurs. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. And so, which is awesome, that’s the American way. It’s the American dream. Oh my gosh.

However, what happens is they build it entrepreneurially. So they’re not again, they’re not there’s no focus. There’s no awareness on exit, nor does it need to be when they start the company. But along the way, it. Okay, so Jeremy, let’s just hypothetically say you got to tap on the shoulder. I know this would never happen, but somebody came up and said, Jeremy, I want to buy your company for $5 million today. Now, you probably wouldn’t sell. Maybe you would, I don’t know. You don’t need to disclose.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:22

For five million? Oh come on.

Pat Mancuso: 20:23

No. Yeah, exactly. Now, Jeremy, I offer you 5 million. You get super excited, right?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:29

Yeah. Of course.

Pat Mancuso: 20:30

Okay. But you’re not getting that 5 million, number one, because if you sold tomorrow, there’s very little tax planning. Tax mitigation. Okay. Two. When they give you 5 million, I’m going to probably have some hooks that you’re going to stay on for a while because the value is you. So now that’s a whole different deal. But the last thing that happens is in due diligence. So now I’m going to go Jeremy, I’m going to give you 5 million. But I need to do due diligence on the company. I need to go in and look under the hood and see what’s really there.

Well, if your prepare piece is not solid, like let’s say that there’s an employee issue that’s not been resolved. Well, now that just dropped your value. Let’s say that you don’t have a buy-sell agreement in place. And we discover through your due diligence that your relationship is not great. And we’re now we’re going to be in business with your ex partner. There’s just so many things. So the prepare part is you can’t prepare everything when you start. It’s a systematic process, but you got to focus on the big things first that put your business at risk.

You know partners. Okay. You’ve got a partner, right, John? Right. I don’t know if you do or you don’t. You don’t have to admit, but buy-sell agreements. I went through that. I exited from a group of seven people. We had a buy-sell agreement. It cost us a lot of money. And even with that, it was an absolute nightmare. Nightmare. Now, I don’t know if my NDA is exposed, is expired on that, but we would never go there. So the thing is there’s a lot of stories there. We could share some, but the point is human beings are.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:12

I don’t want to get you in trouble. But yeah.

Pat Mancuso: 22:13

I always.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:14

I mean, the bottom line is, I mean, some people may not have that agreement in place is what you’re saying.

Pat Mancuso: 22:18

We need to have that agreement in place because by the way, okay, so let’s just not be morbid. But I, you know, you wake up in the morning and people die. Well, what if the owner, the founder, dies and now through that process, the wife is now the owner of the stock. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It might be a great thing. But now, because we didn’t have a buy-sell agreement in place, I don’t get to choose my partner. It’s automatically done for me as part of the process. Or Jeremy, that individual is the Wicked Witch of the West, and the value of the company is 100,000, and it’s going to cost us a million to get him out there.

So, you know, we talked about when we jumped on here, I had a conversation about two months ago with a business owner, past client of ours. We were talking to them about some other services, and they shared with me that they had an employee embezzle over six figures. Okay. Now people would go, well, how does that happen? Because they don’t have systems and processes in place to understand what they should be looking at. Embezzlement happens all the time. It’s crazy. So, you know, one of the things that we talk to business owners about is, the financial piece is understanding their profit and loss statement, but that’s not going to help them with embezzlement, I can assure you, because most PNLs are one lines, and here’s what we spend on marketing. And there are stories after stories after stories. How people get creative with embezzling. Like we had a local title company, they lost 1.8 million, one of the largest title companies in the country in terms of and I’m not going to mention the name because it’s not worth it. Multiple title offices. They had 1.8 million embezzled because the closer had created a company that they were issuing checks to, and it wasn’t caught until later on.

So that’s the prepare part. There’s so many things as part of that. Hiring, you know, so you don’t get sued on litigation. We started a business about a year and a half ago and we terminated the manager we hired almost right away because there were some things we discovered that were not disclosed. And then they tried to collect unemployment from us. And the only reason that they were unsuccessful doing that, and according to our attorney, that never happens in the state of Minnesota, is that we had the proper documentation that we could support their termination. Because I live, unfortunately, in a state that’s very pro employee and so anti employer. And usually they find on the case of the employee, not the employer.

So I could go on and on and on with those examples. Like, you know, even on the customer side, you know, what is our process for documenting the customer service experience? Do we have, you know, tracking? So that’s the prepare side. There’s a lot of pieces to that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:17

Yeah. So from a prepare side, it sounds like you mentioned some there are strategies or systems, there’s financial models, goals, then protect side kind of the the risk management. And then what about on the prosper side? That sounds like the fun one out of the three to me.

Pat Mancuso: 25:33

Yeah. So the prosper side is really about understanding why I’m doing what I’m doing versus being a W-2 employee, making 250 grand a year in a company, building up a 401K in retirement. It’s really about understanding what that exit looks like and preparing for it well in advance. So we have a tool that we offer to clients, and you need to understand what your value is today. So in less than five minutes, you could plug in some data points. And this is BizEquity. Scott’s been on our show. Scott’s a part of BizEquity, one of the creators, if you may, Scott Gabehart. And we can create a value point for you. Now is it exactly to the penny value? No, because, you know, my real estate experience says value is when somebody gives you what they think your company is worth. That’s value. But understanding what the value of your company is today and what and understanding where you want to maybe get to. We can help with that process because every decision you’re going to make along the way, invest in employee, invest in new equipment, invest in new product sales. All those things will either compound value or reduce value. And we have tools to help business owners with that.

So it’s just on under the prosper part is understanding where do you want to go? How are you going to get there? When do you want to get there? And then monitoring and along the way, understanding, you know, I use this example, there was a time where there was a conversation with an accountant, with a client or CPA on the call with a business owner and the attorney. This was Ed Lion. He had a conversation with this particular business owner and CPA and said, you know, I’m looking at your tax information and it doesn’t appear that you’re taking advantage of the Augusta rule. Now, the Augusta rule for people who don’t know it’s a tax credit in the code. It’s been there forever. And basically, as a business owner, if you’re hosting meetings at, let’s say, hotels or venues that you pay money for, you actually can utilize your house on an annual basis a little bit over $15,000, certain restrictions. Again, not tax advice. However, the process to do it is laid out right in the code. And so the conversation with the business owner and the CPA was, you know, like this is potentially something you can take advantage of. And the CPA said, well, that’s pretty small, relatively speaking, in the big picture. Hey, Jeremy, if I offered you a check for $15,000 today, would you think that’s pretty small?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:04

I’ll take it.

Pat Mancuso: 28:06

How about if you own that business for 20 years and I offered you a check for $300,000?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:13

I’ll take that too.

Pat Mancuso: 28:14

Now, that story right there. If there is a business owner that’s listening to this today and doesn’t understand, I’m not beating up their CPA. However, that CPA. should actually be taken out back in the woodshed. And I mean, and I’m pretty bold when I make these statements. That’s not their money. It’s not their money. Like, oh, it’s too small for us to focus on.

I’ll tell you what, Jeremy, you beat that CPA, write me a check for 300 grand for 20 years because it was too small. You think like, do you see that? It just blows my mind. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, by the way, if that 300,000 was in the bank and I was going to sell my company, do you think that increased my multiple of my company? Hello. That’s the prosper part.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:03

Are there other missed opportunities that you see? Obviously, you know, you have to consult your professional with these things. But you mentioned the Augusta rule. Other kind of missed opportunities. Obviously if it applies. Right.

Pat Mancuso: 29:18

Yeah. Yeah. So there’s so many of them. And what Ed would say if he was having a conversation, is there’s so many strategies that somebody could take advantage of. Now, it’s not one size fits all. People are in different circumstances, but even 401Ks and Roths, there’s a way that people can maximize a Roth to get a higher return on investment, without the risk that people think they might have life insurance. I have a partnership with Garrett Gunderson, and we’ve licensed all of Garrett’s materials. What would the Rockefellers do? And Garrett has taught me so much about building wealth through ownership of business, both in high W. You know, we’re not just talking about business owners, Jeremy. High W2 wealth, high W2 net worth. Those folks, those actually are some of the people that get the least amount of tax planning because people think there’s nothing I can do as a high W2net worth, and there’s a whole bunch of things you can do.

But what Garrett talks about is using your life insurance to be a bank. That conversation that I was talking to you about, the business owner who had that tragic thing happen in, in their company. One of the questions he asked me, we talked about before he got off the call was, I’m sick of being personally guaranteed my loans at the bank. And I said, well, what if you didn’t have to do that anymore? And he goes, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, universal life is a way. And this is a strategy of Garrett’s that he talks about a lot. I’m not saying universal life is what you should do. And I’m not licensed life insurance yet. However, I have a partnership with some of the most amazing people in that field right now. But Universal Life could be a vehicle to become your own bank. And most people don’t understand that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 31:17

There’s two things, Pat, that I hear a lot about that I that love for you to talk about, which is one, R&D incentives out there, and then healthcare savings. Before we talk about that, I just pulled up, I actually, funny enough, did listen to this episode in preparation for our call. This is the one, if you’re listening and you’re not watching the video, there’s a video portion, Scott, right here from BizEquity. It was a really good episode, pretty informative. So people can check that out.

But one thing I noticed is, and I’ve heard this, like certain people qualify for R&D incentives, certain people don’t, you know, at this point in time, what should people be thinking about from an R&D incentive perspective?

Pat Mancuso: 32:06

So Jeremy, I got into the R&D space back in 2020, and this was before Covid, and R&D was historically 100% basically impacted in the year that you expanded the R&D related activities. So one of my first clients was a very, very large real estate brokerage. And we fought their CPA respectfully for about six months on it. And finally, I looked at the client and, you know, I said, who’s been a friend of mine forever, I said, not my money, it’s your money. But there’s nothing else we can tell this individual that’s going to convince them that you’re eligible for R&D. And so you’re going to have to make a decision. That particular client is back with us again. They made the decision to move forward with it. And we had, you know, I’ve seen you pulled up there.

We did a podcast interview with Brian Pearson from AIA, which is one of the larger companies. Basically, we push all of our business to Brian, and I’ve had a relationship with Brian since 2020. And so when Covid hit and the employee retention tax credit came around, You couldn’t take both. And the way that R&D was structured at that time, it was really not beneficial for companies to do R&D in 22, 23, and 24 after ERC had expired. So the new administration came in. And in the big beautiful bill, they created a look back period, which expires on July 5th. There is still time, depending upon when people are listening to this, but you would have to get on the bucket right now.

But basically R&D is related to not just lab coats, not just test tubes in the laboratory. The intention of or the intention of R&D has always been having US based companies do expand product services offerings, whether it’s internal or external, creating products to keep jobs here in the US and keep jobs, keep people employed. So there’s many companies that are qualified for R&D and the company isn’t qualified. Let’s be really clear. Again, full disclosure, Jeremy, I’m not giving tax advice. I’m not giving legal advice. It’s not the company that’s qualified for R&D. It’s what they do. It’s the activities that they do. And so many companies do activities that are R&D eligible. And the great part about this is I don’t need to be the R&D expert. I have a high level of R&D experience, but the teams we work with, the CPAs, the firms, they have attorneys, they have CPAs, they have audit protection, and they’re the ones who are reviewing keeping up on the code and making sure that our clients that are taking advantage of R&D are protected in terms of that process.

So R&D, now there’s a lookback period that expires July 5th through 22, 2324. However, R&D is now moving forward 25 and moving forward. It’s always been in the law. It started in the Reagan administration. It was codified a number of years ago. But for companies, if you’re listening to this now and you are beyond the July 5th date, if you have filed an extension for 2025 and you’ve not looked at R&D, you actually could still do R&D before you file your returns for 25 and immediately potentially mitigate tax liability based upon whatever R&D eligibility you might have.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:46

I want to get into the health care savings because but I do want to just touch on what you just said, which is if this stuff sounds interesting to people, I know you. How does it work? Do they, do you do like a call with people or do they go on your site and do an assessment? Like where do people start with your process typically?

Pat Mancuso: 36:06

Yeah, we actually have, we have a website where they can do an R&D. We call it R&D Quick Check. It’s And I’m pretty sure it’s rdquickcheck.com. R&D or I’d have to pull it up. We’ve got so many domains and stuff, but basically there’s a place that they can go. Give us a couple of data points or answer a few questions. Actually a few it’s a little bit more than a few, but it’s going to give us a pretty good idea that based upon their activities, does it make sense for us to jump on a call? So then we jump on a call, we go, we start, you know, if they want to take the next step. Basically, Jeremy, we get to the point where we actually take them through the entire process. And we haven’t collected a penny from them once we do their entire process and then we turn it over.

We basically create this case file for the team that we work with at AIA. Then the CPA’s, the folks, the attorneys, the experts, all the folks that are involved in that process in Austin. They will then come back with an estimate for the client range of recovery. And then at that point, the client signs a letter of engagement if they want to move forward and have the team put together all the pieces of the puzzle, they need to take advantage of that tax credit. So there’s no charge up front, no charge for us to create that estimate. And at the time that we create the estimate, if they want to move forward, then at that point we put a letter of engagement in place. And that’s.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:30

I guess they could just go to MancusoCG.com and contact you there.

Pat Mancuso: 37:34

They could. Yeah. Yep. And while we’re talking, I’m just going do. Yeah, it’s rdquickcheck.com.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:44

I’ll pull it up here. So the healthcare savings, that’s another piece. I mean, healthcare because I was thinking about this. It’s expensive, you know what I mean? And by the way, I’ve never seen anything, I think out of all the expenses I’ve had over the years that goes up at the clip that healthcare has gone up. Like it doesn’t even matter. It’s like it’s going up ten, 20%, 30%. I mean, it’s insane.

Pat Mancuso: 38:17

It’s insane. It’s insane both as an employer and as an employee or somebody who pays for health care benefits. It’s insane. The system is broken. Unfortunately, it might take the nuclear option to fix the system. I was on a call just recently with a company who’s in the healthcare space, and the things that I learned that happened behind the scenes, that just the sheer amount of things they need to go through to be compliant, it’s just shocking to me.

However, here’s the deal. So health care costs. Part of the reason, you’ve got a number of reasons why health care costs are the way they are. First, the system is broken, okay? And you can start with the high cost of, you know, prescription drugs. And I know the administration is working on that a little bit. You can, you know, look at the high cost of risk with liability. There’s a whole number of things you can look at there. But the fact of the matter is health care costs are going to continue to go up.

Two, the way that the system is structured traditionally is you have a company, you submit information on your employees, and let’s say you have 100 employees. That information then is taken as a group and it’s submitted for quotes from 7 or 8 companies. There really is, you know, 7 or 8 of the largest in the country. The quote comes back. You have a broker likely that does this for you, not beating up brokers. However, the broker is paid on commission. So when they come back with your quote, usually what happens, Jeremy, is the quote comes back at. Okay, your new annual health care premiums are $250,000, $20,000 a month, whatever that number is. Now, Jeremy, the original increase was $30,000 a month. But what I did is I’ve gotten them down to $20,000 a month. Now I’m being a little bit facetious, but in reality, this is how it works. And the broker, instead of taking X commission, takes Y commission to make you feel better about the increased cost.

What this process does very simply is it looks at your healthcare cost differently and structures them differently. Under section 105 of the tax code, it allows a company to do certain things first in quoting it.

So let’s say you have 100 employees. And I’m oversimplifying this because the team that we work with does all of this for our clients. But let’s say you have 100 employees and let’s say the hundred employees ranging from range of 70 in age to 30 in age, and let’s say of the 100, 30 of them are over 50. So you have 30 over 50 and 70 under 50. Okay. Now, just logically, which ones do you think are going to be more expensive to insure?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 41:03

The older ones.

Pat Mancuso: 41:04

The older ones, right? Getting the traditional pricing market, they’re all put into one group. So one of the first things that this structure does is it prices them differently. Now again, the pricing of differently helps reduce the cost just right there alone. And then the way that it’s ensured after that. So you get a catastrophic policy and then you get a second policy under that. And I’m oversimplifying it, but basically the way that it’s done is the company that we work with manages this all. Oh, by the way, they don’t have to call an 800 number to get information on there. They don’t have to go to HR. There is a customer relationship with this.

And here’s the coolest part about it, Jeremy. The company that we work with, which is ClaimLinx out of Ohio. Their compensation is based upon cost savings. It’s not a percent of the premium. It’s based upon cost savings. So the more they can save their customers, the more that they earn. And that 30 to 40% is after their savings. So we’re having a conversation right now with a very large firm, 130 employees. Right now, we’re projecting to save them over $1 million a year. Okay. Hey, listen, not my money, Jeremy, but do you know there will be people who go, I don’t want to save $1 million a year because my HR person said that this is going to be more work for them. I’d fire that HR person in a heartbeat. Like I’m being totally serious.

Like sometimes business owners allow people who don’t value the owner’s money as much as the owner does to make decisions, because it might be more work. Now, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying it’s more work, and I’m not saying there might not be impacts on things, but hallelujah. It’s just like the CPA making the decision for the business owner that the Augusta rule doesn’t make sense for them to look at. Write me a check for that amount, and then we can have a conversation.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:56

What number of staff does it make sense to go, okay, Pat, I have X number of staff. I should contact you to learn more. What’s the bottom like threshold?

Pat Mancuso: 43:08

We’re doing one right now. Yeah, we’re doing one right now, which I think there’s 14 employees and it’s an annual savings of $40,000. By the way, I didn’t share this, but this is a big deal. The employees actually get more money in their paycheck without giving them a raise. I don’t know if you’re a business owner and your employees could get a raise without you having to give them more money.

So I would say ten is a good number, but we’ve looked at some that have been less than that. And it’s not just about the savings, it’s about the deductible. It’s about the opportunity that one of the things. Remember, the company is incentivized for what they say. So let’s say you have an employee. I’m ill, I feel ill, I feel really ill. Maybe I think I’m dying. I don’t know.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 43:54

And this doesn’t change their, they still use the same insurance that they had.

Pat Mancuso: 43:58

They can if they’re with Cigna they stay with Cigna. Now we quote it. And that’s all of the options. But let’s say, let’s just think about human beings. Most human beings, many human beings. Nothing wrong about this. If I feel like I’ve got something maybe like, really, I’m not understanding what it is. Do I go to urgent care first or the emergency room? Which one do I go to?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:24

If I don’t understand what I have?

Pat Mancuso: 44:26

Yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:27

I mean, it depends, but I think, you know, for me I’m going to the urgent care. If it’s not like something’s not like falling off my soul, falling off my body, you know.

Pat Mancuso: 44:39

Yeah. No, no, but most people don’t do that. They go to the emergency room because they think it’s emergency. They’ll get treated fast. The average emergency rooms in most major.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:47

Exactly.

Pat Mancuso: 44:47

It’s like three hours. Oh, by the way, it’s like multiples of.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:51

Also, when you step into the emergency room, you like, I don’t know, it probably cost $1,000 just to step in there.

Pat Mancuso: 44:57

Like, I mean, think in the parking lot, it costs $1,000. So what happens is the company that because remember, they’re incentivized to help the employer save costs is they have a whole education vehicle. They actually help companies reduce prescription costs for the employees based upon what they do in the background. Because again, remember, they’re incentivized to save companies money. And this isn’t a one time savings, it is an annual savings. So when your insurance goes up in your traditional model and their renewal comes back, they’re going to reprice, they’re going to redo everything to make sure that they’re keeping those cost savings in place. I know it seems like a no brainer to me based on where health care costs are going, but that’s just me. It’s not my money.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 45:43

I have one last question. That should be the new name of your podcast. It’s not my money.

Pat Mancuso: 45:48

I love that. Maybe we should change it again.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 45:49

No. No, I want to first of all, I have one last question before I ask it. People can check out. We’ve been showing it on the screen, MancusoCG.com. You know, they have a lot of great resources. He’s got some really informative podcast episodes. You can check it out under the resources, you know, podcast drop down.

Pat Mancuso: 46:10

And material is there as well under the resources section.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:14

Great. Yeah. And that was my next question, which is like just some of the colleagues and mentors you’ve learned from. I know you’ve mentioned a few Garrett Gunderson, you mentioned Roland Frasier, Ryan Deiss. Who are some of the other influential people that, you know, are colleagues, mentors that that you have learned from, from throughout the years?

Pat Mancuso: 46:31

So we did a podcast episode with Vince D’Addona. He’s the godfather of finance, finance, exit. He’s been a great mentor to me. Gary Keller, obviously, real estate has been a great mentor to me.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 46:48

Would you have anything specific from Gary that you learned?

Pat Mancuso: 46:52

Yeah. The biggest thing is he wrote a book called The ONE Thing. And most people I did an interview, Gary. But I mean, you know, I talked andI lived in Gary’s world for almost 20 years, is that he wrote a book called The ONE Thing. And it really is almost impenetrable model. It’s the one thing first. That’s what most people don’t understand. It’s not just one thing you focus on, it’s one thing first. So Gary has been incredibly instrumental.

Dan Kennedy although I don’t have a relationship with Dan Kennedy, I am a Dan Kennedy junkie, so to speak. And so that’s another person who’s just I mean, it’s marketing 101 and it hasn’t changed. And I just read his recent book about AI and business. And I think we’re getting way too crazy about AI. And the thing most people and again, I’ve tried to absorb as much of this as I can. AI is like the CPA who records historical data. AI is historical. It’s when you look at AI, the true story. I can’t, I’m going to mess up some of the particulars. But there was a recent story. I saw that an individual went to AI in the tax credit world and took advantage of a tax credit, and then created an AI report with sightings from IRS actual cases and IRS code he lost in tax court because none of what the AI report produced was accurate. Literally, it stated code, IRS code section, blah blah blah. Case law. And none of it was accurate. So, and Jay Papasan, co-author of the book, both amazing, amazing people. And so those would be the big mentors for me.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 48:50

Any favorite books? I mean, as a mentor could be distant mentor. Obviously, you mentioned The ONE Thing, you happen to know Gary Keller. Actually, I had Jay on the podcast a long time ago. I think it’s a phenomenal book. For sure. Any of your, any other favorite books of yours from a leadership?

Pat Mancuso: 49:07

And you can’t really see it because of my background, but Ryan Deiss’ Get Scalable was a great book. I just, I love that book. Gary’s book Shift. Dan Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing. There’s this book that Ed Lyon and I did, How to Beat the IRS, Legally, that’s a national best seller. And then I co-authored a book with Jack Canfield called the Unlocking Success. So I’m a book junkie. There’s probably more sitting around somewhere because we just moved our offices, but we’re not quite moved in yet.

The book I read of Dan Kennedy on AI was incredible. It just totally blew my mind. What sometimes people think in history. Okay, this is all new. And then you get back to everything is not new. It’s just a different way to look at it, like AI. I mean, you’re in my age bracket, you know, remember when the internet came out? Remember that company called pets.com? You do remember?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 50:11

Oh yeah.

Pat Mancuso: 50:12

You remember. Where are they now?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 50:15

No, I have no idea.

Pat Mancuso: 50:16

No no no. So it’s there’s fundamentals to everything life, business, you name it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 50:24

Pat thank you. Everyone check out MancusoCG.com. Check out the podcast and we’ll see everyone next time. Pat, thanks so much.

Pat Mancuso: 50:33

Jeremy. Thank you so much. This was great. I love it, I love it.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 50:36

So much fun.