Create Smart Money Habits as a Female CEO: Interview with Arnesha Bobo [Ep #173]

ANDREA: Hey guys! Andrea here. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the podcast and we are getting into the money mindset again. It is going to be an ongoing battle that you will have to struggle with your business. It is going to be an ongoing battle against your ego; battle against the limiting beliefs you have around money and I always reflect on how I was when I first started my practice. I would literally every single day wake up and open up my bank account and look at my numbers and multiple times throughout the day I will look at them again and it just created this obsession around my bank account.and if you start listening to how we need to be approaching money and approaching this money mindset. It is actually the last thing you should even be looking at. I mean we still do weekly huddles with our team where we get our numbers up to date and we see our revenues were. I know what my expenses are. I know what money came in and what money didn’t come in. Its not that it’s not apart of the conversation but it is no longer an obsession that I’m having where it was literally a fear based relationship where even if I lost a dollar or if I didn’t make a dollar it would be all I could think about and of course as we know with the law of attraction the more you are thinking negatively about something typically the more negative that abundance is. But the more you can start to let that go then the more you actually start to attract wealth, prosperity and all of those things.

ANDREA: and I remember this moment where I was working with my mentor Brandon Lucero and he was talking about how he reflects on debt and we’ve even had him on the show talking about this. I think it’s episode 86. Where he no longer looks at debt as a bad thing and of course as when we are being raised and especially being raised by our parents and of course their relationships with money debt was always considered to be really bad thing. You never want to be in debt. You want to get out of debt as quickly as humanly as possible. For me, being in debt for the first five years of my business, that was all I was thinking about is how can I get out of this hole? What do I need to do? And parting with my money for investments, for mentorship, for coaching was really difficult. So, I really love this reframe. Who was it that defined debt as being a bad thing. Who was it that said money is this tangible entity that will control your life and if you don’t have enough of it your are not happy and if you have too much you are not happy. Who knows how people interpret that. When he mentioned that and said it in a way. I was like “ you know that’s right.” Money really is an intangible property that allows us to do things. Even in your bank account you see the numbers that are there but in reality it’s just binary code that shows up to reflect what is in your bank account but it really doesn’t mean anything.

ANDREA: So that money is just like this empty, invisible currency that you have to buy experiences. To buy personal growth. To buy business growth. To help leverage your time. I’m all about buying time freedom right now. Ever since the shutdown that is all that I think about. How can I just make my lifestyle better? How can I show up for my kids more? How can I stop doing all the things that I don’t want to do? And all of that costs this intangible, fake entity that we put a name on it we called money and it’s just allowing me to now hire a new employee or delegate to my VA’s or whatever the case maybe. I think the sooner you can start letting go of what money actually means and what it stands for and look at it as this invisible thing that allows you to get whatever you want out of your life. Whatever you want out of your business. To spend as much as you ever want too. To hold on to just as much as you want too. But it just is. Instead of taking this whole identity as this thing coexists with you and your business. I think the faster you will start to let go a lot of the emotional baggage and the beliefs you have around wealth and what that means. A lot of my journey is also letting go that seven figures that everyone talks about because life is so much better if you’re making seven figures. And now, I am coming to terms with “ you know what, even if I am just profitable and can pay my bills right now and it keeps me home and happy and with my family. I’m actually very, very content by that.” and that’s why a couple of weeks ago we did that entire episode who says what success is anyway? Who says you have to be making six figures to be successful? Really what it comes down to is your profit margin. It’s not about the revenue you are able to bring in because you could easily have a seven figure business that cost seven figures to get there or you could have a fifty thousand dollar business and you take home over sixty percent of that as pure profit.

ANDREA: Which lifestyle you want to be living in. So, these revenue numbers and I think these things that everyone is talking about and yes! I always will say we want you to build a six figure practice because you definitely aren’t going to have anywhere close to a six figure net profit without making six figures. You’re not going to get a hundred percent. But, even right now we are at 300K for the year and our profit is 85K. That’s our net profit for the year. If I have to make three hundred and fifty thousand to get a six figure net income for the year. I’m really happy with that because to make 350K the amount of effort I need to put in, the amount of time that I need to show-up. All of these things are not nearly as much as if you’re running a high six figure, seven figure business. Right now, I just don’t want to work that hard. I’ve really loved the break that I’ve taken this year and that the shutdown really showed me and it just made me reframe things. The reason why I’m bringing on Arnesha because I wanted to talk a little bit more on how you can start chipping away those money blockers that you have and really making smart decisions about your money starting to run your business as its own entity instead of merging the lines between personal and business and I really hope you really enjoy the interview. And so without further adieu, let’s jump to that now.

ANDREA: Hello! Arnesha. Thank you so much for coming on to The Profitable Practice podcast today. I am so excited to have a very honest and frank conversation around the awful money habits that we have especially as female business owners and CEOs and I know you are the expert in all things with regard to that. So for those who don’t know who you are would you mind introducing yourself and give us a little of a background on how you became a sort of like the queen of controlling money for all female CEOs.

ARNESHA: Thank you so much for having me. I am ARNESHA B0bo. I am an author, speaker, and CFO coach. I help service providers increase their bottom line using strategic planning. A little bit about my background. I do have a thirteen plus year corporate accounting and financial analysis background. So, I’ve worked through your favorite brands and managed billions of their dollars throughout the course of my career. I got started with an Accounting Consultant a few years ago. Being in the Accounting Department I met a lot of small businesses who wanted to come and do business with the corporation but their business was not set-up properly. If you want to do business with some of your favorite brands. One of your starting points is to become a vendor so go to their website. Go to their supplier diversity program or their supplier program anyhow and just register. In order to register you have to have a good foundation. You got to have your business entity incorporated. You have to have a business license. They might ask you for financials, they need the scope of your team, the scope of work that you are going to perform. A lot of businesses did not have that particular information. They just started doing business and got good at it but never went back to build that initial foundation. So, I work with them to help them build the infrastructure and get their business registered and set-up properly to do business. I am not a gatekeeper. If you want to do business with someone, listen I will help you get in the door as best as I can because there’s a ton of money to be made and these corporations have it. Trust me I know, I’m in some of the financials for it. Overtime, I became the go-to Accounting person for some of these businesses to help them get their things like their business budget. They want to pay themselves a salary. They wanted to expand to a new market. They wanted to analyze their profit margins within the company. Try to figure out, are these services profitable or what’s making me money versus what’s losing me money. Overtime, the towers are to build my firm. I joined a couple of professional networks and served in leadership. I spearheaded a ton of different programs and webinars, masterclasses, or events in that organization to help teach business owners about financial management and helping them with those financial habits and how to get a handle on their cash.

ANDREA: Awesome! The reason I wanted to bring you on is that I find a lot of people in our industry, especially in the health and wellness industry we are not born CEOs. We are not born to be business owners. We were born because we have this healing power inside us and we want to help as many people as we can. I even asked what is your ultimate goal for your business or lifestyle and no one says I want the seven-figure eight-figure business. They say I just want to make an impact as big as I possibly can and still have a good solid lifestyle for myself and my family. When you are talking to your clients where do you find the biggest money blockers are? Just a start for them to really kind of get even comfortable to be talking about money.

ARNESHA: I think it’s that initial concern that I cannot really do this or that is Impostor Syndrome. I think that every entrepreneur on the planet has suffered from it. I have as well. But, their concern is will someone else spend the money with me and if they want to be higher priced what would people actually pay for? I’m like yes do not allow the fact that you can’t do it because you see so many other people doing it stop you. Look at all the make-up brands. Look at all the coffee brands. I love Starbucks. I am a Starbucks fan. I know I can go anywhere to get a dollar cup of coffee. I want to go to Starbucks because I want Caramel Macchiato and I know with all the add-ons it’s going to be a seven dollar drink. Okay? Starbucks doesn’t care about my budget. They just care that I’m a customer so think about how Starbucks is charging their prices versus Mcdonald’s or a small mom and pop coffee shop. Don’t let that stop you. Someone will pay for your service. You just have to communicate your value and position your brand in front of people who have the excess money to spend on your products. Don’t let that stop you. Do away with the Impostor Syndrome and beat it down to the ground. Don’t let it hold

you back. Trust me, I have been there. As a CFO like I said my background is in Accounting there are a ton of Accounting professionals out there, right? People think all Accountants are created the same. We are not. We all do different things. But, I could’ve allowed that other one 1.2 million Accountants in the world stop me from starting my firm. I was like “ No. I’m going to get in, where I fit in, and focus on what I like to do. So don’t let the Impostor Syndrome stop you or hold you up.

ANDREA: I think that’s easier said than done. I would love to know your personal journey and of course the journey you walk through with your clients to work through that because a lot of times there’s a ton of limiting beliefs associated with money. There’s a ton of limiting beliefs around their personal value and that feeds into what we call Impostor Syndrome. So, just very briefly what were some of the ways like you said kick it to the curb. Just do me. Attract people who are going to love me. What are some of the things that you have people work through to get a little bit closer to that coz it’s a huge fight that will never a hundred percent go away?

ARNESHA:  Yes. Absolutely! I think it starts with my early upbringing. My family is a working-class family. My family wasn’t rich. There’s one entrepreneur in my family. I grew up seeing people go to work and some of them didn’t like their jobs and I knew early on I did not want to grow up and be an adult who went to a job that I didn’t like but they have to do it because they have families to feed, they have bills to pay. There’s one entrepreneur in my family. My favorite aunt she’s a hair stylist. She always pushed me to do what I want to do. But if I have to do it I have to do it right and can’t half tell it. You can’t have one foot at the door and one foot out of the door. She pushed me to do exactly what I wanted to do and even when I was going through my Accounting training they don’t teach us how to be business owners. They teach us how to do the job. They don’t teach us how to be business owners. So, I have to learn from training and investing in myself and joining these organizations on how to be a business owner. And even with being a member in one of these training sessions I’m looking at these other people like you guys are killing it. They’re making a lot of money. They have a team for support. They have a lot going on and I’m just getting started. I feel like I’m so behind coz I don’t have these in place. I don’t have  that in place. Definitely, kill that spirit of comparison. 

Don’t compare yourself to other people. You have to be firm and confident in your ability to perform. I know I can do a business budget. I do really well in creating business budgets for business owners but I can’t look at someone who is also in my field who is doing ten million dollars a year or look at someone who works in a big accounting firm because one, I’m not providing what they offer even though we’re in the same industry. But you have to be sure of yourself. Like I can do this. I can outperform anybody and I can help bring value to my clients. Like they’re coming to me for a problem. I’m going to one hundred percent solve their problem to the best of my abilities. You have to hype yourself up. You have to put on some Beyonce, Rhianna, Miley Cyrus, or somebody. You have to turn that inner you and be your own champion sometimes because entrepreneurship can get lonely and sometimes it’s just you and your work who are getting through it and you might not have cheerleaders. You have to learn to be your own cheerleader and hype yourself up

ANDREA: I love that and the other piece or the other final period that I’ll put to the end of that is I just say I’m in this for the long haul. I’m going to outrun all of you. Other people might feel weak and they fall and I’m going to keep going. I’m not going anywhere. That’s another sort of mantra that I keep in my head. I don’t need to run faster than you. I don’t need to get there sooner than you but I’m going to keep going. I love everything that you said there. Now, let’s talk about the money side of things. I mean that’s what we’re talking about today and what should we talk about first? Should we talk bootstrapping to get your business kind of going in a very safe and risk-averse way? Or should we jump right into those smart money habits that we should have?

ARNESHA: Let’s talk about both of them. Really quickly let’s talk about bootstrapping. When I first started my company. I didn’t take into account that I could leverage that bank’s money. In my mind, I was already fed up as an employee anyway so I was out of the door, anyway. But, what I started to do overtime was I had excess money so when I knew I was getting serious about building a practice. I started to save money. I created a business budget within my personal budget like I knew I needed to put a few hundred dollars away every single month for a few months and invest that money into my business so that my business had cash flow. That’s how I bootstrapped. I knew early on I suck at Admin tasks. I really really do. I knew early on I have to have money for an Admin because I needed that support. 

So, Building that support into your company is very important. If you are going to bootstrap your business you definitely need a plan. You need a business budget from the beginning whether you are going to bootstrap or use the bank’s money, you need to have a business budget and don’t think of it as a restriction. This is where businesses get it wrong that business budgets are restrictive. No. This is a plan you are telling your money this is where I want you to go. This is how I want to spend you and this is how I want you to come back to me. Definitely, create that business budget on the front end so you know exactly how much is going to cost you to run your business and how much revenue you need for it to support those expenses. Bootstrapping is good if you can. Do not stress yourself out if you cannot give back the bank’s money. Speaking of the bank’s money, I would recommend starting out with a business credit card or a business line of credits, something small or if you go to that process and you are not qualified for some reason you’re denied, it’s okay. Don’t panic. Don’t freak out. 

There’s always a second option. If you have personal credit. One, keep your personal credit good and clean. Clean it up as much as you can. Leverage your personal credit, Everyone loves to say I have a seven-hundred credit score or I have a big credit score. Nobody cares about that if you don’t have any buying power behind it. Coz I know in his mid six hundred or high six hundred who can get tons of credit. So leverage your personal credit. Increase your personal credit card. Go get a personal line of credit and then loan your company the money as your personal interest. Now, you have a cash flow supply. Over time, you just increase those lines. If you don’t go for the bootstrap method. I definitely recommend you utilize and maximize your personal credit until your business can sustain itself. 

Now, over time when you’re building your business you will be able to build business credit. I have a credit coach now who is helping me because I am going to a new market now and I need a larger line of capital. Part of the capital management of our company that we work with our clients on its will is increasing. So what would we need to do and how much cash do we need, what is your work in the capital. So definitely, bootstrapping is good. But bootstrapping should be a very simple solution and then you build a relationship with your business banker because banking is a relationship and that’s how you get the money. Build a business relationship. Go to a relationship with your business banker to start increasing these lines or figuring out what am I and increase that capital over time. Hopefully answers that question.

ANDREA: Yes, but I’m going to break it down. And I’m trying to follow the path. So, the first thing that’s coming to mind is I totally get the bootstrapping piece. And what I love is as soon as you say budget, I absolutely have that negative response, that means I have to restrict that I can’t have all of the negatives. So, could you go and show maybe some examples of how we can approach those budget differently because I think what you’re actually sayings is, it is your, you should be as the business CEO listing out what is your expected expenses are, listing out what the different employees, different mentors or every other piece are that you need to have in your business and what that cause so that at least you know where your money is going but other layers to that that I missed, I’d love for you to elaborate on that.

ARNESHA: Yes, change your attitude about money. Once you manifest the life that you want and you start, you will start attracting money. So, start with your attitude first. I don’t know where in human life we start to dig for budget restrictions. But it’s not a restriction people, a budget is simply a plan and this is the plan that I am going to use for my money. I am totally controlling my money where it goes. You have a life plan with your partner first you love so much, you date them and over time you are like, okay, we’re taking this thing to the next level, It’s the same thing, it’s the same idea about money, so, change your attitude first. If you have a negative feeling or commendation every time money is mentioned and then you are stressed immediately. There’s a problem with your feeling or your relationship to money. We all made a bad decision with money as of included. I would not act like I am perfect. I made a ton of mistakes in life and in business when it comes to money but Ive learned from those mistakes. And I turned those mistakes into successes. So, change your mind and your attitude about money first. So, once we have a plan, once we have the right attitude about money, we are like, okay, this is my budget for the month. This is how much money I am going to make. This is how much it’s going to cost me. And this is what I intend to do with what’s leftover. So you have to sit down and think about it and change your attitude about it. That’s the starting point, change your attitude first, get a positive attitude about money because money is a tool and you’re going to use it as a tool to your advantage or you’re going to allow it to use you. 

ANDREA: And so with regards to creating this budget and going back to the bootstrapping piece, where do you find the most frivolous spending is actually happening because I feel like when we have our own business, we automatically think, oh yeah you know it’s a write-off. This is a write-off and I feel like there’s almost a forgiveness that we have to ourselves to buy more things like your Starbucks for example that we really shouldn’t be if for beginning stages for that if was going to bootstrap our business. So what are some of those very obvious mistakes do people keep on making?

ARNESHA: Number one, our subscriptions, we can go whether it is Kimbal, adobe, our email account, or our project management tools. Monitor that spent. Those little $9.99 or $12.99 expenses, add up very very quickly. SO any expense that you incur for your business that is necessary and ordinary is a tax deduction, that’s good. All going well. But don’t be so caught up in a and you’re going to write it off at the end of the tear and it’s February and you’re buying subscriptions. You still have ten more money and the remaining months of the year. You want to watch those small subscriptions because they’re going to add up and I have a budget meeting this morning and what the client wants is we start reducing it because it’s eating you up even myself I looked up one ounce in the middle of the marketing campaign and I was out about 400 bucks out with the subscriptions. Oh, my, wait! So those subscriptions are very very key. Another high to get an item is labor. You have to maintain and contain your labor cost. In some industries, it’s just not possible you absolutely need that labor to produce that product from the start. But you have to monitor your labor who actually needs to do it in an organization, automate those processes. How do we combine those efforts to not overwhelm that individual? So definitely monitor that labor because that labor keeps one of your highest cost drivers.

ANDREA: And then I think food. I always think that meals and entertainment people are like sure, I’m going to order lunch today or sure I’m going to buy those other things. AT least that’s the one, like Andrea, you’re way overspending on food. 

ARNESHA: Yes, definitely. For those of you who are not familiar with meals and entertainment deductions changes every year and now you can write off the meal portion of the expense is 50% tax deductible. We used to be able to add meals and entertainment to have fun at the company’s dining. To gauge how much fun you’re going to have or impress this client. You may want to stick to the meal and entertainment portion.

ANDREA: you’re breaking my heart here. Okay, so now let’s move on to the other part that you mentioned which I thought was really interesting, I hadn’t heard before. Which is all about those similar lines of credit going into business and having a business create a line of credit. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more?

ARNESHA: Yes, one thing, what I do want to mention is that do not over leverage your business. This goes back to having a good financial management habit and really understanding how much money is coming in and out of your business. How much do you actually need? So I always advise businesses to play in for the year and we’re going into the new year and we’re going to start a business in 2021 you need to be at arriving at that cost now. In a way that helps you, not only to prepare ahead of time but you can look at your personal situation. Okay, I actually do have $200 a month that I can actually invest in a business out of my personal budget or to my business. Or hey, I really don’t have that extra money, I need to look at utilizing my business credit or I need to up my personal lines so this requires you to discipline yourself and change your attitude going back to an attitude of money or change your attitude with money is a tool. Sometimes you overspend, sometimes you don’t spend a notch. But you want to make sure that you understand what you cost first. Start with that, how much is this going to cost me? Now, as far as leveraging your personal credit for business, that’s for conversation as you if you work with tax professionals sit down and talk to them about records differently. Are you alone in the company money or you investing money in business because it’s captured differently for taxes? I invested money in my business. I knew it was an investment alone. SO you can’t say it’s an investment now and then during tax comm, it’s like, you need to be very consistent on how you are giving money to your business.

ANDREA: And elaborate that a little bit more so what is the difference between and even from a tax perspective, if I am starting a new business or I want to double or hire someone. Let say, I have $10,000 that I want to invest in my business, or I have $10,000 that I want to loan to my business. What’s the difference between it?

ARNESHA: As an investment, you are investing as a capital business as an immediate cash rejection, right? And it’s recorded in your balance sheet it increases your equity into the company where you are not expecting that money or the business to pay you back as what I want to do for the business. Alone as you act and loaning company money and I expect my company to pay me back this money. Now, the expenses are still recorded the same but instead of increasing your owner’s equity you have now increased liability on the business books and that will be tracked over time so we can determine that the okay owner invested this t that thousand dollars to the business. The business has been able to pay the owner back at least three thousand dollars so the liability is there. So investing is your decade’s cash into the business, loaning the company money you are creating a liability to the business to pay the owner back.

ANDREA: Got it! And this may be completely off side but now I’m thinking what is the difference or what encourage the people to do because there’s always a question around sole proprietorship and incorporation so we just incorporated last year so now I have this clear division between my business as its own entity and me as a personal employee but when I was a sole proprietor I found that to be very blurred and I learned that people feel that the grass is greener on the other side if they incorporate, but I’d love to get your take on that with regards to this while money exchange between personal and business.

ARNESHA: Okay, so I’d never encouraged any business owner that’s looking to grow a successful company to be a self-proprietor. There’s just no personal liability that protects the business, or the business owner. The sole proprietorship is, in my opinion, it is great for someone who has a nice hobby, like a consistent hobby. They’re not looking for too much protection, it’s not something that they’re looking to make a million dollars from. It’s just something really easy, and simple to do. That’s what a self-proprietorship is for. When you’re ready to incorporate and take your business to the next level. That incorporation protection helps protect the business and the business owner. It creates a media separation because your business is a completely separate entity from you. Right? That means that the business needs its own operations agreement. It needs its own bank account because it incurring its own expenses and it’s making money. So that money needs to be separate. Even if you are paying yourself from your business, you need to be able to write a check to yourself. Right? Don’t just go and pay your personal bills with your business card because now you’re co-mingling and you’re blurring those lines. We need those lines to be much defined and very separate and that’s one of the benefits of incorporating your business. Now the type of structure that you want to incorporate, that’s a conversation you need to have with a tax accountant and it’s because it’s going to affect your taxes. Every single year you should have a tax plan. And your incorporation affects how you pay taxes, which taxes you pay, and also how you pay yourself as a business owner. So that’s why that separation is very important.

ANDREA: Let’s talk about some other smart money habits that we haven’t yet discussed. I think there’s a ton.

ARNESHA: We’re discussing a lot of them, a vision plan is very key. So, part of the strategic planning that we do with business owners is vision planning. So I think that’s my favorite smart habit in any business, any woman should consider because everything starts at the top with the vision. If you don’t have a vision, it doesn’t matter who you hire. They’re going to be all over the place, screamingly trying to come up with the best solution because they’re not aware of your vision if you don’t know what objectives to create to help support your vision. So vision planning is key, everything starts with a vision. What is your vision? What do you aspire to be? Right? And then, what are your values? What are the grand values? From those values, we create goals, short term, and long term goals. So goal planning is very important, but it goes back to the vision. You can’t create goals without understanding the vision of the company and be able to create effective objectives to support that vision. So vision planning is definitely key.

ANDREA: And with regards to vision, I mean, I find a lot of the times we go to the workshops they talk about the vision and the mission statement and all these other things. And people get really excited and pumped about it that day and then they never look at it again. It just sort of goes back into their journal up on a bookshelf and then they’re like ‘okay cool, I did it I was inspired for a moment’. So how do you reuse that vision on an ongoing basis to reignite again, your purpose for the business?

ARNESHA: Put that vision on something. So behind me is my vision board, and as you can see it has Oprah on there and million dollars. Right? I have to put that every single day when I walk into my office because that lets me see where I’m going, helps me stay on task. But also if I wake up in the morning, and I don’t have a million dollars in my bank account, which I haven’t by the way, just yet. That’s my goal, to wake up and make a million dollars a day in my company. I need to get my butt to work, and I need to work really well to help bring that vision to life. But I think that you have to put it somewhere whether it’s a vision board, whether it’s a page in your planner, whether it’s a page in your journal. You need to see your vision every single day. My vision for my firm is to be the sought out CEO consulting firm for women internationally to help them strategically plan for their company. I have to stick to that plan, that’s my plan and all my goals are sitting around that plan. We create a strategic plan every single year. Every single quarter, I’m having a quarterly meeting with my team like ‘look, where are we yet? Because my million dollars a day, cause I don’t see it.’ So you have to look at it, you have to see it, you have to touch it. I could pick my vision board up and just walk around with it and sit with my thoughts or just go to the patio. So you have to see that vision every single day and it might happen. Right? Your vision may change, no matter how many times your vision changes. You need to still be able to have access to it so that you can alter or modify your goals to stay on track with your vision.

ANDREA: And I love how quickly you’re able to rhyme off your one or two sentence-like mission. I loved that and that’s how it should be. It should just be like everyone just knows exactly what the course is you know as the owner. What are some other smart money habits that we may not have touched on yet?

ARNESHA: Time management. Time management is key. Spending too much time on the wrong things could cause you a lot of money. Trust me. I have been there, I’ll always speak from an area of my experience. Because I used to focus on the task that wasn’t revenue-generating and that cost me money when I could’ve just delegated that task to someone else. Sometimes I’m like ‘hey I could do this just really quickly, here’s the thought, here’s what I need to do. Bone to three, let me log on to the system and do that.’ When I should have been focusing on something else completely. So time management is key, get a project management tool where you can write out all the task that needs to be done and then assign those task to your team if you have one. Or just assign ‘do this’ to yourself like ‘I need to do this task or have this task completed by this day’. So time management is key. There’s this saying ‘time is money’ and it really is. If you spend the wrong time on the wrong task, it could definitely cost you a lot of money. A lot of business owners do this, they want to do their own bookkeeping. I’m like ‘anybody can record transactions, but it takes a lot more to understand what is happening financially than just recording stuff’. You are not an accountant, just ask for resources. It’s a small task, all you need is to record how much money you make, how much you spend, what’s left over, and do all your taxes money. So do away with tasks that you don’t make money, that is not revenue-generating.

ANDREA: And I’m all about buying my time freedom so even since the shutdown happens this year. I’ve really reframed how hard and hustling I was working and realized where I need to be. Who I could delegate to, who I need to hire, and yeah it cuts into your profits but it’s making me happier, it’s making the business run more efficiently. And I think that’s also part of the mindset on money is releasing the grip we have on it and allowing it to be used. To yes, it may be cut into your profits momentarily but now that we’re having all these right people in place, they’re most likely going to do the job better than you would have ever. And your brain can now go to those higher levels of things. So I’m so thankful that you brought that up.

ARNESHA: Yes, absolutely. And then another smart habit that I would definitely have any other entrepreneur to look out for is preparing for opportunities. So making sure that you are prepared for the opportunity. I have been fortunate having my business to connect to a few individuals to help me get some big contracts with some really dope organizations. But I was ready, I have my WNR ready, I have my binder packet ready, I have my director passive ready to get the money. I have my scope of work-ready. So be prepared for an opportunity that can help take you alone in your business. You don’t want to have an opportunity in front of you and you’re not ready to accept it. Right? That could cause you a whole lot of money at that time. You don’t want to miss on a big contract, because you weren’t ready. You want to get ready so you’re always ready and prepared for an opportunity. So definitely make sure you are prepared in your business and that’s something that you can work on over a standardized plan is getting these documents in place. Who do I want to do business with, who want to do business with the government or a corporation, they have checklists out there, they have the what you need to do document list in order to do business with them and if you don’t have those documents ready you have to get them ready so that you’re prepared for the next opportunity.

ANDREA: Awesome. Any final words that you would say to people while their mind-melding on our conversation today and are getting their businesses prepared for the New Year. Because this is perfect timing. Anything that we’ve missed that you want to make sure is your final take away.

ARNESHA: My final take away would be just incorporate good financial habits because that helps you, it touches on everything. It helps you build a profitable business, it helps you increase cash flow. Right? When you know what’s going on in your business, you have visibility. You’re able to make really good decisions to help drive your company further into success. Not having visibility, not having prepared, not having the right team and place. All of that affects your business and then also your profits. You don’t have to go to business because you don’t have the right planning place. So definitely plan, plan, plan and create a plan to win. Don’t just go out and Google to find a template, just sit down with your goals and understand your vision so that you can create a plan to land. So I think planning is definitely key, creating that smart plan.

ANDREA: Thank you so much for being on here. And if people want to reach out to you in particular and chat you up. What are some of the best places to find you?

ARNESHA: You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter on @arneshaspeaks that’s a-r-n-e-s-h-a-speaks. You can also check out my blog, we upload a new blog every single month to help small business owners create these smart habits or implement this financial infrastructure. And the blog is Your Bottomline Blog it’s a free blog, you don’t have to enter your email address, you can go out there and grab some great tips and implement those tips to your business today.

ANDREA: Awesome, thank you again so much.

ARNESHA: Thank you for having me!

ANDREA: Alright guys I hope you love that as much as I did. And of course now, we often get really inspired, we start thinking about things and we rarely execute on what we’re learning. And I don’t want that for you. You have to be an imperfect action taker every single day, and if you need some extra support on that, I would love to be that person for you. You can either book a game plan and call with me, the link is in the show notes. Or learn more about the maximized practitioner program, and our three-step framework to merging your practice online meaning, creating multiple streams of revenue through our free video training, the link is also in the show notes. If you loved this episode let me know @AndreaMaximND Please leave an iTunes review and if you do that I will happily buy you a coffee. So if you leave an iTunes review and you take a picture of that and then share that with me on Instagram, I’m going to send you a $5 Starbucks gift card just to say thank you. Alright guys, this is it for this week’s episode I will see you next week. I’m Andrea Maxim and I’m out.