Breaking Taboos: The Importance of Money Conversations in Business
This episode delves into the critical, and often overlooked, significance of understanding and managing one's finances as a business owner. We explore fears surrounding money, particularly among female entrepreneurs, and emphasize the necessity of breaking the taboos associated with financial literacy.
Throughout our discussion, we highlight the importance of actively engaging with financial statements and maintaining clear oversight of one’s books, as these practices are essential for sustainable business operations and informed decision-making.
Moreover, we address the importance of understanding the distinction between revenue and profit, as well as the returns on investments made-- including your time and energy--to ensure that business owners can navigate their financial landscapes with confidence. As we navigate the complexities of finance in the entrepreneurial realm, we encourage our listeners to embrace their roles as informed leaders and take charge of their financial narratives.
Takeaways:
- Understanding one's financial statements is crucial for effective business management and decision-making.
- Women business owners often face significant challenges in securing funding compared to their male counterparts.
- Regularly reviewing accounting reports can help identify discrepancies and optimize financial performance.
- Business owners should actively engage with their financial data to ensure they are aware of their monetary situation.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Getting Real with Bossy, the podcast that talks about what it's really like to be a business owner with Kelly.
Speaker A:Bush and Kelly Metris.
Speaker B:And today we are talking about our favorite subject.
Speaker B:Money.
Speaker A:Money, money, money, money.
Speaker B:Notice how I didn't say what I usually say when I say money, because I am trying to reframe how I talk about money, because it is.
Speaker B:It is just I need to.
Speaker B:I need to stop being terrified of money.
Speaker B:I think, you know, we.
Speaker B:There's so many songs.
Speaker B:We wanted to start this with music, but we don't own rights to any music.
Speaker B:But I go back to.
Speaker B:There are so many different money songs, and I just want to.
Speaker B:I want to reference one of my favorite money songs by my.
Speaker B:One of my favorite bands, abba.
Speaker B:I work all night I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay Ain't it sad?
Speaker B:And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me that's too bad.
Speaker B:And that is how so many of us feel.
Speaker B:Not just women, business owners, but when we go over some statistics later today, you will see that it seems like that, but it is.
Speaker B:It is very sad.
Speaker B:And money just, money just goes so quickly and if we're not on top.
Speaker A:Of.
Speaker B:Can be really dangerous.
Speaker B:And that's what we're going to talk about today, how some steps that we can do and things that are really important in small business world to look at and make sure you have a good handle on, because money is a huge part of business, whether you like it or not.
Speaker B:And as we've talked about in the last couple episodes, and Kelly and I talk about it a lot, generationally, certainly we have not been brought up necessarily to understand money as much as perhaps our brothers have.
Speaker B:And we're trying to break that.
Speaker B:We're trying to change that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And I think it's normalized for our generation anyways to be okay with it being in someone else's.
Speaker A:Like, they.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:They take care of it.
Speaker A:Like, you know, even I don't want to mention names of big businesses, but the big businesses that we use, you got to check and make sure they're charging you right.
Speaker A:Because they could easily be charging you wrong.
Speaker A:And you're missing out on that money because you're just putting blind trust because you think other people know what they're doing.
Speaker A:Well, guess what?
Speaker A:The other people are not special.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I'm so surprised.
Speaker B:And I think this will bring us to our first point.
Speaker B:How many people put that trust in professionals to do handle their books.
Speaker B:And yes, you definitely need accountants and bookkeepers.
Speaker B:They're incredibly important.
Speaker B:I have them.
Speaker B:I can't do the work that my accountant does.
Speaker B:But you need to understand your books.
Speaker B:And I am so surprised by the amount of small, micro small, even mid sized business owners that do not understand their books.
Speaker B:They put everything in their accountant's hands and they go about doing their business.
Speaker B:And it may be seemingly a successfully ran business, but if you don't know your books and you don't know where your money is going, it's bananas to me as somebody who does the all of their own inputting and I know that that's not, that's my own personal choice.
Speaker B:But you need to know where your money is, you need to know what your books look like and it is a okay to have a bookkeeper doing that work for you.
Speaker B:But you need to be asking for your reports.
Speaker B:P&LS minimum once a month.
Speaker B:We recommend at least once a week because Kelly and I look at our stuff all the time and we're always going through our percentages.
Speaker B:Do they make sense and is it the right season?
Speaker B:What's going on?
Speaker B:Because it's so important and there's so many things that can be changed.
Speaker B:I had a subscription that I was paying for several months and it went up and I didn't notice it for a couple months because it just didn't register.
Speaker B:It wasn't a lot of money but it went up.
Speaker B:I reached out.
Speaker B:The reason that it went up made a lot of sense.
Speaker B:But because I do really good business with them and I help them out with another arrangement, they were like, oh gosh, I had to go up because now we have to take taxes for that.
Speaker B:But because of the things you've done for us, let me see if I can get you some discounts.
Speaker B:And I was able to get the same rate that I had before.
Speaker B:My, my accountant wouldn't know that and they would just think that's a reasonable, a reasonable thing to go up.
Speaker B:After a year of using this, things go up and they would not know to look at that.
Speaker B:And I'm sure a lot of these things are happening and that and those little things happen.
Speaker B:If you can save 30, 50, $60 a month on six or seven different things, that's a lot of money.
Speaker A:And if you're getting the deal of a lifetime, read the fine print.
Speaker A:Are they allowed to increase your prices without notice?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So when you fight back, is it in the fine print?
Speaker A:And I'm going to throw a little chatgpt.
Speaker A:Because you could take that fine print and dump it into whatever AI program that you prefer, even though I'm not a huge proponent of AI.
Speaker A:And it will tell you what you need to, to keep your eye on.
Speaker A:It'll give you the bullet points, give you the overview and kind of just help you understand it.
Speaker A:And you can ask specific questions like, does it say this in the fine print?
Speaker A:And it'll actually look at it for you.
Speaker A:Because none of us actually want to sit and read it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:But you need to know what the fine print says.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that's a huge.
Speaker B:I mean, you cannot like AI and there are plenty of people out there that don't, but there are some things that it is really good for.
Speaker B:And you and I have talked about that.
Speaker B:I put the results of an MRI into, into ge and I, yes, Google, you can sponsor our podcast.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It spilled it out for me.
Speaker B:I wanted to understand it more.
Speaker B:It was just for my ankle.
Speaker B:It wasn't anything serious, but I wanted a little bit more information before I went in and met with a new surgeon.
Speaker B:And there are things that you can use it for.
Speaker B:Something like you just said, is the perfect thing to use it for.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So know and, and get it in writing, right?
Speaker A:Anything you're working on with another person, another company, whatever it is, get it in writing and ask all the questions.
Speaker A:I am a huge fan.
Speaker A:Asking questions in email so that they're answered in email and it's from like the company email.
Speaker A:And then you just put it in a little folder in your email account.
Speaker A:And if questions come up, you can be like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:This is what you said.
Speaker A:You have to hold, hold to that price.
Speaker A:You know, we're all raising our prices as we need to.
Speaker A:And I don't want to like, push on other companies having to raise their prices.
Speaker A:But it's the, the not telling you.
Speaker A:It's the sneaky.
Speaker A:The sneakies.
Speaker A:We get a lot of those.
Speaker A:I just had my, my menu software almost double in price with.
Speaker A:After three years of being the same price, no word.
Speaker A:And I was like.
Speaker A:I saw it hit my credit card and I was like, what the hell is that?
Speaker A:No, it's just my software renewal.
Speaker A:So just keeping up on who's getting away with what.
Speaker A:You know, there's going to be things that you're like, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker A:Yeah, my costs of food sometimes go up, but there's other times that it is a mistake by the person who's putting it in the computer and they're charging me too much.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Which is different than the cost of, you know, it cost them more to get the steak.
Speaker A:It's going to cost me more to get the steak.
Speaker A:But if someone's putting it in the computer wrong, I need to be able to catch that.
Speaker A:So I'm not paying for it.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And I think another thing we talk about a lot in Bossy.
Speaker B:When you start your business, you're doing that thing that you're really passionate about, and it's probably not reading financial statements.
Speaker B:So let's.
Speaker B:Let's break it.
Speaker B:We talk about breaking taboos.
Speaker B:We've talked about this, and that's something we're going to talk about today.
Speaker B:So let's break that taboo that you have as a business owner, as you start out, or even 16 years in, as I am this year, that you need to understand everything about reading financial statements.
Speaker B:And you know what?
Speaker B:Throw your financial statement into ChatGPT.
Speaker B:I haven't done that yet.
Speaker B:Or Gemini and maybe.
Speaker B:And ask it to explain it to you.
Speaker B:They're.
Speaker B:They are tricky, right?
Speaker B:I mean, for a while.
Speaker B:I mean, I remember our first year, I'm like, what a balance sheet?
Speaker B:And P and L. Like, why do I need two different things?
Speaker B:Like, aren't they essentially telling me the same thing?
Speaker B:It took me a while to kind of really figure out what, like, what I needed for different things.
Speaker B:And they're incredibly important.
Speaker B:And it is a.
Speaker B:Okay if you don't know what the hell they mean or everything about them.
Speaker B:There are a lot of different reports that you can run, and they're all important for different reasons.
Speaker B:And it's fine if you don't understand all of them.
Speaker B:Ask for help.
Speaker B:Reach out to Kelly and I.
Speaker B:We will help you read through them.
Speaker B:We will help you understand them.
Speaker B:We've had other business owners.
Speaker B:We just sat down the other day and helped a woman go through P and L. We're totally fine to do that.
Speaker B:We don't care.
Speaker B:We'll show you ours first.
Speaker B:If there's any.
Speaker B:If you're, like, shameful about your numbers, I'll show you mine.
Speaker B:You can see mine.
Speaker B:I'll show you anymore, actually.
Speaker B:But, like, ask for help with these things.
Speaker B:Because if the reason you're not going through your panels is and your balance sheet and your financial reports and statements is because you just don't really understand them.
Speaker B:That is.
Speaker B:That's just silliness.
Speaker B:Let's get over that and reach out and ask for help.
Speaker B: Because according to score in: Speaker B:Since the pandemic, and we all had to do a lot more reports, only 12% of women, women business owners felt very confident in their ability to read financial statements.
Speaker B:And that is not okay.
Speaker A:Not okay.
Speaker B:So we need to make that, we need to make that better.
Speaker B:So we're going to talk about some tips at the end, but reading those.
Speaker B:Pull a P and L as often as you can.
Speaker B:Pull a balance sheet as often you can.
Speaker B:Bare minimum, once a month.
Speaker B:And we will, we will happily be your accountability partners.
Speaker B:We can just set up reminders for you.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We'll just, we'll call you, send you some DMs.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I'll get off my soapbox about that.
Speaker A:Gotta know your numbers, and, and it's important to know your trends, your seasons, when things are gonna go up and down.
Speaker A:I always, I look at my numbers monthly because the way things come in and out of the business fluctuates so much depending on the day that I pay certain things.
Speaker A:But then also because of that fluctuation, my monthlies might fluctuate month to month.
Speaker A:So I, I really like looking at the quarterly, and I compare to the years past, you know, the six months a year past, you know, two years past, and see where I am comparatively to other times I've done business to see those.
Speaker A:If those seasons are changing and those fluctuations are changing.
Speaker A:But more specifically, looking at your percentage, like whatever your percentage is, and it's not the same for anybody.
Speaker A:Everybody knowing what you want your percentage to be and watching those numbers, because if they do spike, it's something you need to catch early on and figure out why.
Speaker A:I mean, you may have an employee, you may have an employee stealing time.
Speaker A:Why is this person, you know, why is my payroll up?
Speaker A:And then you actually deep dive and find that someone's working 10 hours more than you have them scheduled.
Speaker A:That's theft, right?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:So I want to pay my employees well, but I still have to hit a budget, right?
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Anything else we need to hit on that before we move on.
Speaker A:Know your percentages, check your numbers.
Speaker A:Have your hands in the book somehow.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You can't have your hands in all the time and you have someone else doing it.
Speaker A:Your hands need to be in it at least once a month, minimum.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And it's okay to have a cocktail when you drink.
Speaker A:When you drink, when you drink about money.
Speaker A:It's okay to have a cocktail when you talk about money.
Speaker A:It's been a long day.
Speaker B:It is encouraged.
Speaker A:I hope my ice.
Speaker A:I hope my ice doesn't Distract people from.
Speaker A:From listening to this important topic.
Speaker A:But it was easy.
Speaker B:I think it's helpful, actually.
Speaker B:I do think it's helpful.
Speaker B:I like the clinking of the ice.
Speaker B:Okay, let's talk about roi.
Speaker B:Return on investment.
Speaker B:Is time and yours, your time and money paying off.
Speaker B:It is so important.
Speaker B:We don't have a of either these days, time or money, so we need to start making sure that it is paying off.
Speaker B:We put so much money into things.
Speaker B:I mean, we could talk about this with home and business, really, but we're going to stick with business.
Speaker B:Today.
Speaker B:We put a lot of money into a lot of things, into subscriptions, into memberships.
Speaker B:Is that actually paying off?
Speaker B:You need to take a look at these things.
Speaker B:I know so many people who belong to different groups or chambers or things just because, oh, they're just such good people.
Speaker B:I love what they do.
Speaker B:That's great.
Speaker B:Then that is called charity and that falls into a different.
Speaker B:That's in a different line item.
Speaker B:If you want to do charity, that's wonderful.
Speaker B:Memberships are things that should be getting return on and you have to find a way to be able to track that.
Speaker B:And if you're not doing that, then that's not a really good use of your time.
Speaker A:And I think return is a specific thing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So like when I join a new group, I have an outcome I want upon joining.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So bossy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You're going to, you're going to see people utilizing your services just because we have amazing women doing amazing things and it's just like organically networking.
Speaker A:That's not the point of bossy.
Speaker A:The point is of bossy is using the support services.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So that's going to look very different than if I join a group specifically to try to improve my catering.
Speaker A:So if I'm trying to get more catering contracts, then that group, I need to look and be like, okay, how many catering contracts at the end of the year did I get from this group?
Speaker A:Do I want to renew my subscription?
Speaker A:And did I actually put in the time and energy?
Speaker A:Is it my fault?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Because there have been years, especially during the pandemic, where certain things fell to the side because we didn't have the time and energy to do it.
Speaker A:And I did stay on knowing that I was going to put forth the effort that this year, but making it an effort and, you know, a specific goal to make sure I'm hitting these targets.
Speaker A:So if you're spending the money, you have to put the energy forward, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's a, there's a business listing that we were a part of at one point, and it was like $200 a month.
Speaker B:I only did it for like six months.
Speaker B:I didn't get anything out of it.
Speaker B:Luckily I canceled.
Speaker B:But there's a lot of thing.
Speaker B:People that'll do that.
Speaker B:So it's $200 a month.
Speaker B:@ the end of the day, if you're.
Speaker B:If you're doing a decent amount of revenue.
Speaker B:$200, that's $2,400 a year.
Speaker B:It's a lot of money.
Speaker B:When you sit and think of that, that you could do a lot with that money that could be somewhere else.
Speaker A:It could go into your business, but you could also be going on vacation.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And if it's not doing you any good, then what's.
Speaker B:What is the point?
Speaker B:And knowing where.
Speaker B:Where to spend your time?
Speaker B:I mean, people tell us all the time, oh, why are you not on TikTok?
Speaker B:I'm like, do I need to be on TikTok?
Speaker B:I don't think TikTok is bringing me restaurant customers.
Speaker B:There is.
Speaker B:I gosh, I mean, you were not at the Rise Awards this year, but Rise Awards, it's recognized.
Speaker B:It's a group.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's an industry award ceremony for restaurant industry.
Speaker B:And Golden Corral, I think, in Brooklyn.
Speaker B:1.
Speaker B:Because of their social media accounts.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's Golden Corral.
Speaker B:They are.
Speaker B:They're huge and they're hysterical, and they have built up these.
Speaker B:I'll send them to you.
Speaker B:I'll say, I'll post a link.
Speaker B:When we.
Speaker B:When we share this.
Speaker B:When we share this podcast, they're hysterical and.
Speaker B:And they are definitely getting more customers because of their TikTok and their social media, but they work hard.
Speaker B:They work hard for.
Speaker A:It exists in a lot of different cities.
Speaker A:You know, if you have a.
Speaker A:Something you're selling in one location, and if you're not selling it online and being able to reach people everywhere, having a social media that the point is to reach people everywhere doesn't make as much sense.
Speaker A:Is it like Wendy's?
Speaker A:Cause, like, I don't have a Twitter for the restaurant, but Wendy's does a great job on their Twitter, right?
Speaker B:So TikTok.
Speaker B:TikTok is not going to get me more customers in Little Old Sea Rays.
Speaker B:So if I'm spending.
Speaker B:So it's not necessarily my time, but if I'm spending 10 hours a week trying to do work on TikTok, that's not use of my.
Speaker B:That's not good use of my time.
Speaker B:I'm not going to get a Return on that investment.
Speaker B:And my time is an investment.
Speaker B:I don't have a lot of that to give either.
Speaker B:So you have to.
Speaker B:Don't always think of return on investment as a financial thing.
Speaker B:You need to think about that as.
Speaker B:As your time as well.
Speaker A:Or if that's a difficult concept for you, put money on your time.
Speaker A:What are you worth?
Speaker A:I'm worth a hundred dollars an hour.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker A:I have way too much in this brain.
Speaker A:I know way too much about way too many things and effective ways to do different things.
Speaker A:To waste my time exactly.
Speaker A:On something ineffective.
Speaker A:So put a number on it.
Speaker A:Even if you say, okay, I'm worth 30 bucks an hour, think of that as 30 bucks you're taking out of your business every hour to do this.
Speaker A:Would you pay somebody to do that?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Then you shouldn't be doing it.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:And there are just so many simple ways to track things.
Speaker B:A simple spreadsheet, going to events, make up a simple business card.
Speaker B:You don't need fancy things to be able to make connections and know what's coming back to you.
Speaker B:You don't need to create a separate email for each event or each membership that you belong to.
Speaker B:Very simple ways to track.
Speaker B:Ask if you have employees that are answering your phone.
Speaker B:How did you hear about this?
Speaker B:Just simple questions.
Speaker B:Knowing where.
Speaker B:Knowing how people are hearing about you.
Speaker B:Ask the questions, know if it works.
Speaker B:If it doesn't, let it go.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Same thing with advertising, right?
Speaker A:Like, I put so much money last year into Google Ads.
Speaker A:Oh, God, Google Ads.
Speaker A:Google Ads.
Speaker A:Hey, Google, you should sponsor us.
Speaker A:And I finally was like, this doesn't make any.
Speaker A:I'm not getting any hits on this.
Speaker A:And a lot of it was, I was specifically targeting.
Speaker A:Targeting our allergen menus and catering.
Speaker A:So those were two things that I could see if more people had ordered those things, you know, so it was a very easy overall thing to track.
Speaker A:And finally I was like, yeah, this is not making any sense.
Speaker A:I need to pull all of this money.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And put it somewhere else.
Speaker B:I've spent money on marketing in 16 years, on so many different things.
Speaker B:And it wasn't until we started doing radio, which I never, ever would have thought, and it just happened to be because a good friend of mine when we bought the Union in Irondequoit that does radio, and he's from Iranic Way, and he's like, Mr. Iranic White.
Speaker B:I was like, well, at least this will get our word out there.
Speaker B:I'll try it for a little while.
Speaker B:And I've never had Such feedback from marketing, ever.
Speaker B:So I'm like, I guess radio is our thing now.
Speaker B:Never would have thought that.
Speaker B:Who the sister?
Speaker B:Just because I don't listen to radio.
Speaker B:But there I've never.
Speaker B:I hear so much.
Speaker B:Oh, heard your ad.
Speaker B:I heard your ad on the radio.
Speaker B:I'm like, you did?
Speaker B:That's great.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker B:But every time I just happen to turn on the radio, I hear it too.
Speaker B:So I don't know, I guess it works.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker A:But, yeah, you got to find your thing, whatever your thing is.
Speaker B:All right, let's talk about revenue versus profit.
Speaker B:And how can that be fooled by big numbers?
Speaker B:Because those two things are very different.
Speaker B:I love people.
Speaker A:It's simple concept.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You can have six, seven figure revenue and spend double that.
Speaker B:Profit and revenue are very, very different.
Speaker B:And I was.
Speaker B:When I was looking up some statistics and notes on this, I found this quote that says, revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.
Speaker A:Oh, I love that.
Speaker B:So that might be our shirt for this episode.
Speaker A:Yes, that is the shirt for this episode.
Speaker B:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:I mean, because honestly, it doesn't matter what your revenues are.
Speaker A:Your revenues could be a hundred thousand dollars if you're making $30,000.
Speaker A:If your revenue is 2 million and you're making $25,000, guess what?
Speaker A:It sounds like you just did a whole lot more work for less profit.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And this is.
Speaker B:I think everything that we've talked about so far goes into that is how you know, everything goes into your profit.
Speaker B:And you cannot understand your profit if you are not understanding your ROI and knowing your numbers.
Speaker B:Because I think people just, dude, how much of money I made this year?
Speaker B:I'm like, I don't care.
Speaker B:How much did you, like, what was the end number matter?
Speaker B:I'm like, well.
Speaker B:Well, I mean, kinda.
Speaker B:I mean, I know none of us want to show that we made a lot of money at the end of the year because we don't want to pay a ton of taxes.
Speaker B:But like.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And are you paying yourself?
Speaker B:Right, so good point.
Speaker A:Profits are lower, but you're paying yourself a hefty livable wage, then fine.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:But if you're not paying yourself, I think that's where it gets tricky is where if you're able to pay yourself a percentage of your revenue, then, yeah, higher revenues are great.
Speaker A:But if you're not, that's where it gets.
Speaker A:That's where I think where people have a difficult time navigating that line.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And I think you have to understand that too.
Speaker B:And the kind of what we're going to go into talking about next too, because banks and funding people want to see big numbers.
Speaker B:And I think we feel like we need to achieve these great big numbers.
Speaker B:But when you understand what profit actually is, that, and sometimes we have to go in and explain that.
Speaker B:I've had to go in and ask for money.
Speaker B:Or when we go in looking for a mortgage for a big, for a building, they're like, well, you know, you only made this much.
Speaker B:I'm like, right, but look at, but look at what we made.
Speaker B:Like, but here's our percentage profit.
Speaker B:Like that's, that's a really good number.
Speaker B:Like in restaurant world, that's like, we've done well just because our numbers aren't in the seven, you know, whatever, seven digits.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker B:Understanding that is incredibly important.
Speaker B:If you're just going for the highest number in revenue, you're, you're kind of doing this wrong.
Speaker A:And there's a happy medium, right?
Speaker A:We all want a high number in revenue and a high number in profit, right?
Speaker A:Because in theory, the higher the revenue, the higher the profit.
Speaker A:If you're paying attention to your numbers, it is very easy to lose your profit margin when you're not paying attention.
Speaker A:And that profit margin is not only fixing things that get broken, it's not only paying yourself, paying your mortgage on your home, buying your kids food, right?
Speaker A:Whatever that is that you're spending your money on.
Speaker A:Because let's be honest here, small business owners, it's all interconnected.
Speaker A:Our home lines, our business lives, our money at both.
Speaker A:If I don't have any money at the end of the year, that means I didn't make any money.
Speaker A:And at the end of the year you gotta pay taxes.
Speaker A:If you don't have money in the bank, how are you gonna pay your taxes, right?
Speaker A:So it's all a very fine.
Speaker A:And that's why accountants and CPAs are very important.
Speaker A:But you have to know what they're talking about so that you can be working on it throughout the year and you aren't surprised at the end of the year.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you need to have those mid year check ins, or at least maybe even quarterly for some people.
Speaker B:You need to understand, hey, this is where I'm at.
Speaker B:Because that can change.
Speaker B:You can have a really great season.
Speaker B:If all of a sudden your summer is a banger, you need to be checking in with your accountant because you may want to be setting some of that money aside because your fall may suck and your wager may be worse.
Speaker B:And then all of the sudden all of that money that you made is gone.
Speaker B:And then you still have to pay a ton of taxes.
Speaker B:And you can prepay a lot of these things, too.
Speaker B:And your accountant can get you set up with some of that stuff.
Speaker B:And there's ways that you can hold back.
Speaker B:If you are making money at the end of the year, depending on how you're incorporated, you don't have to take everything.
Speaker B:You can hold things back and you can set things aside.
Speaker B:And that's where accountants are really, really important.
Speaker B:And again, we never said they're not.
Speaker B:We just.
Speaker B:You just need to have a really good relationship with them, and you need.
Speaker A:To understand what they're doing and why.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Because you're the one.
Speaker A:You're the one with your hands on the money every day, not them.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And a lot of people do it so blind that it's scary.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:So know your books.
Speaker B:Know your books and know your books and make sure they're clean.
Speaker B:Just because your accountant is doing that, you're probably still keeping some type of ledger or QuickBooks or something.
Speaker B:Make sure those things are clean.
Speaker B:Because at the end of the day, if you're audited, your accountant is going to be probably doing most of that work in dealing with the government.
Speaker B:But it's your business.
Speaker B:They're not going to be paying your fines, and they're not going to be potentially going out of business.
Speaker B:They're not going to be in trouble.
Speaker B:You are.
Speaker B:You need to see your books, because clean books are your responsibility.
Speaker B:Clean books also get you loans, get you grants, get your investors, and also help you potentially sell someday.
Speaker A:Strategies.
Speaker B:Need to have an exit strategy, and you cannot have one without clean books.
Speaker B:You can't fake.
Speaker B:Well, I'm sure people do.
Speaker B:You should not be faking your books for an exit strategy.
Speaker B:And you need to have.
Speaker B:You need to be able to.
Speaker B:When you're going into situations where you need funding or, like I said, looking for an investor, you have to have clean books.
Speaker B:And I think that's a lesson a lot of us learned during the pandemic.
Speaker B:There was one loan or one grant that went out for the restaurants, and I know another one went out for entertainment and theater and arts, and it was very quick.
Speaker B:You had to have be able to turn your information in quickly.
Speaker B:And, like, I don't know if I think restaurants.
Speaker B:It was like 45 minutes and all that money was gone.
Speaker B:If you didn't have clean books and we didn't know, we had an idea about what the application would look like, but we didn't know exactly.
Speaker B:And if you didn't have all of that stuff ready to go, you did not get that money.
Speaker B:And it was a sizable amount of money for a lot of us.
Speaker B:So we learned.
Speaker B:A lot of people learned a really hard lesson during the pandemic by not having very clean books, not understanding their financial statements, and having a lot of their.
Speaker B:A lot of the resources in their accountants hands.
Speaker A:There's a lot of having to wait on your accountant to turn around things when you need them.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Which will hopefully never happen again.
Speaker A:But never say never.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:But there's a lot of little grants that pop up on my.
Speaker B:Through my emails every once in a while that I'll.
Speaker B:I'll put out for.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't think.
Speaker B:I don't know if they're ever real or not, but I'm like, I might as well try.
Speaker B:And I've gotten some of there that could.
Speaker B:That doordash grant that one time, it was like a $5,000 grant.
Speaker B:And I have no idea.
Speaker B:I'm like, I'll just, I'll give it a try.
Speaker B:But if I had to get that stuff from my accountant, I never would have gotten it in time.
Speaker B:Yeah, I had to be quick on it.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Well.
Speaker A:And I think something along these lines that follows with knowing your books is emergency planning.
Speaker A:If you know where you are in the year and something big happens, you know all of your inventory can get destroyed.
Speaker A:And that doesn't matter what business you're in, as long as you're selling a profit.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Or a product.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Maybe I should hold off on the cocktail.
Speaker A:But you need to be able to make solid decisions at a moment's notice and not reactive.
Speaker A:So in those situations, you may take on excessive debt or not understand your cash flow.
Speaker A:So you take on a high interest loan when you could have done it differently or rolled something over or borrowed from somebody out and just knowing all of your options and how that looks in your business and in your books.
Speaker A:So when these things happen, you can react in a calm manner and be prepared.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because there is time to spend cash if you have it.
Speaker B:There's also time to save and hold on to cash and utilize a line of credit.
Speaker B:And those things are important.
Speaker B:And that is your accountant's job.
Speaker B:I think that's one of the things we'll send you to after this too.
Speaker B:Like if your books are messy, ask your accountant to clean it up.
Speaker B:It is literally their job.
Speaker B:If you want your reports, ask them.
Speaker B:It is their job.
Speaker B:If you have a question on I need to, you know, Replace my roof as I do right now.
Speaker B:I may have the money to do it, but should I get this line of credit, what is the right decision?
Speaker B:And the answer is hold onto your cash.
Speaker B:Because right now is a tricky time in the economy and the government.
Speaker B:Hold onto your cash and get a line of credit that makes more sense financially for us right now.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Where 10 years ago I would have been like, I will not take on any credit because we did not have any debt.
Speaker B:But right now, debt is something that is.
Speaker B:It is for us okay to have right now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And being okay with that and not being scared of it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And honestly, debt allows you, if you know your books and you know your.
Speaker A:Your business, and by knowing your business means knowing your money, you can actually strategically plan growth.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And that involves debt a lot of the time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Don't be scared.
Speaker A:Rational choices.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:But as far as funding goes, here's a little stat from you, for you, for from bids to credit.
Speaker B:Women are approved for business loans at a 33% lower rate than men.
Speaker A:But we also ask for less money than men.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Because where is the other stat?
Speaker B:Women entrepreneurs are 63% more likely than men to bootstrap their business.
Speaker B:So we are often just self funding our businesses and just mostly because we just assume we're not going to get the funding.
Speaker A:Because funders suck and they're sexist.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:And I've got.
Speaker B:I've got a bunch of stats that I think I want to go over.
Speaker B:Well, not a bunch, because some of them are just sad and depressing.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, throw it out there because sometimes we need to be slapped in the face.
Speaker A:Kelly.
Speaker B:All right, let's see.
Speaker B:All right, so yes.
Speaker B:About Disney.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:Women and business owners, 33% small business owners getting loans even though we are owning.
Speaker B:I'll see if this one's a little bit old.
Speaker B:42% of US businesses, even when approved, women receive smaller loans on average 56,000, where men are getting 94,000.
Speaker B:That's just in that one ratio.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:See?
Speaker A:But it's important to also ask, right?
Speaker A:Ask for lower interest rates, ask for a higher loan amount.
Speaker A:Always ask for more first.
Speaker A:I learned with our not for profit, I could not get $50,000, but was told if I would just ask for a million, I could have it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And I was like, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker A:And I can't do that.
Speaker B:I don't need them.
Speaker A:And, you know, maybe if I could go back, I would do it over again, you know, and it would have made A bigger difference.
Speaker A:But I thought that was crazy and I, I understand it on a certain aspect, but as a business owner, like, that's just a ridiculous feeling.
Speaker A:Especially for women and small businesses to be like, oh, I'll take on a bigger amount of debt.
Speaker A:Well, sometimes it's easier to get a larger loan and negotiate.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:When women do get funding, they outperform Women led startups deliver $0.78 revenue per dollar invested compared to $0.31 for men.
Speaker A:Because we're amazing.
Speaker A:Let's just talk about how amazing we are.
Speaker A:Women should take over the world.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It matters.
Speaker B:Investors who fund women get a better ROI.
Speaker B:They need.
Speaker B:Listen to this episode.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:It matters.
Speaker A:You know what matters?
Speaker A:Women are successful.
Speaker A:We are powerful, we are decision makers.
Speaker A:And yet we are still scared to talk about money.
Speaker B:And you don't have.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because you don't have to be a financial expert.
Speaker B:You just have to be the boss.
Speaker B:And the boss means knowing what's going on with your money.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:And don't be afraid to ask questions.
Speaker B:Please ask us.
Speaker B:We'll help you.
Speaker A:And you can always search it on the Internet.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker A:There's no reason with the technology we have in our pocket everywhere we go that we can't have the knowledge to allow ourselves to feel confident enough to walk into a room and talk about our numbers.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And it doesn't always feel good because we're not used to doing it.
Speaker A:And this is a vague statement.
Speaker A:This is not.
Speaker A:This is for anybody that's not used to talking about money.
Speaker A:And this could go for men too.
Speaker A:And there's probably women out there that are like, no, I have no problem.
Speaker A:And that's great.
Speaker A:But for those of us that struggle, you need to know your numbers.
Speaker A:You need to know what the words mean.
Speaker A:And if they're words you don't know, you need to search them up.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And talk about it to yourself if you need to, before you walk into the room.
Speaker A:Just so you're confident saying those words and knowing what the answer is.
Speaker A:Because you do.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker A:You have all of the information at your fingertips.
Speaker A:You have the ability to know all of the things.
Speaker A:There is nothing that makes you less important or special than the person who owns the multi trillion dollar delivery service that's probably driving past my house right now.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Other than he has multi trillion dollars.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:That is the only difference.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you don't understand your money, what you earn, how you spend it.
Speaker B:What you're spending it on.
Speaker B:How to borrow, how to invest.
Speaker B:You're leaving money on the table.
Speaker B:When women do access capital, they outperform.
Speaker B:So let's close the gap.
Speaker B:Let's break the taboos.
Speaker B:Let's make sure you're the one who's in control of the narrative and the numbers.
Speaker A:Hell, yeah.
Speaker B:Be brave, be bold.
Speaker B:Be the boss.
Speaker A:Follow us at Bossyroc.
Speaker A:Email us bossyroc gmail.com.
Speaker A:tag us.
Speaker A:Ask us questions.
Speaker A:Come on the show.
Speaker A:It's important.
Speaker A:Let's keep talking and send this episode to someone you know that needs it.
Speaker A:Yes, we'll see you soon.
