The best vs worst ways to invest in your business

The world is experiencing a lot of economic instability right now, and one of my biggest predictions for 2023 is that business owners are going to be getting savvier with how they spend their dollars. It’s not that business owners are going to be investing in their business, it’s just that they will start being more mindful about how they are spending. In today’s episode of the podcast, I’ll be sharing some terrible areas in which you should invest your hard-earned dollars and some savvy ways that you can spend for rapid profit growth.

Hello and welcome to the Claire Wood Podcast. This is your weekly dose of all things money to help you intentionally create a profitable business and a life you love. I have the difficult conversations about money so you can make more money with ins each week. I share how you can use mindset and the practical foundations of finance to elevate your earnings without sacrificing the things that are important to you because you can and should be making more money.

If you wanna get more clarity about where to spend versus where to save in your business, make sure you sign up for my three day live challenge, the spend versus save challenge. It will be a live training that I am conducting and I’ll be taking the work that we do in this episode together even deeper. It’s only 29 US dollars for the three day training, including your workbooks, and you can sign up via a link in the show notes for today’s episode.

5 expenses you are wasting your money on

So now that we are talking about great ways to invest your dollars and some not so great ways, what we might do is start with some of the areas that I think you are wasting money as a business owner. So what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna share with you five expenses on which you are wasting your money.

The first one is on team members that aren’t performing. And when I say team members, I’m also talking about contractors here. I had a really interesting discussion this week with a friend of mine and we were talking about a contractor that she has been engaging and she hasn’t really been happy with their performance for a really long time. Now you might wonder why would you keep working with someone that isn’t performing? And the answer is quite simple, really, because it’s better the devil, you know? Right? And I know that I’ve done exactly the same thing. Sometimes the idea of starting fresh with a new agency or a new team member feels so overwhelming that you’re happy to put up someone who’s doing an an okay job because it seems easier than starting the whole process again. But the truth is right, your money is your hard-earned dollars. And if you have someone in your team that isn’t performing well, quite frankly, it’s a waste of money, right? If it’s a performance management issue, maybe you can get in and start to have those difficult performance management conversations or give them more feedback about how they can be performing. Or alternatively, maybe this is your sign to cut your losses and to go on hire someone who is the right fit and who is gonna deliver the results that you expect to take your business to the next level.

That’s the first area I think you could potentially be wasting money in your business. The second area is in group coaching programs that you aren’t actively participating in. Again, this is something I am so guilty of signing up for a mastermind or a group coaching program and not showing up for the calls. I dunno if this resonates with you, it’s certainly something that I’ve done myself. Now of course I recognize that sometimes there are contractual obligations. You know, you might have committed to a certain period of time and I’m certainly not encouraging you to not honor your commitment inside. In fact, if you have taken that step, maybe this is your, your nudge to go and participate and get the most out of that program. But what I do see a lot is that sometimes people sign up for things like memberships or group coaching programs and they literally just aren’t using them and they continue to pay for it even though they’re not using it. A non-business example of this, I know that sometimes I signed up for a subscription service to, you know, Netflix or something along those lines to watch a certain program. The program finishes and you just keep paying the bill. It’s an absolute waste of money if you are not using something in a subscription style and you just keep paying the bill.

Which leads me to my next area that I think you could be wasting money in your business, which is on unused subscriptions. Unused subscriptions are when you’ve signed up for something and you’re not using it anymore. This could be things like you’ve upgraded your email marketing program or you’ve upgraded to a premium version of Canva and you’re simply not using it. You continue to pay it each month, and this is money that you are literally just letting link out of your business. Now you might think, oh, it’s no big deal, it’s just $15. But trust me, these really add up. I have done this exercise with clients of mine and you know, I’ve admittedly a lot of my private coaching clients are multi six, seven figure business owners, so these can slip through the cracks for them. But one of my clients went uncovered $12,000 in a subscription that wasn’t being utilized. Now this can happen and I really, really encourage you to actively dive in and have a look at these.

The next thing you might be wasting money on is costs that aren’t delivering a positive return on investment. Now, I’m gonna be diving into this a lot more inside the three day Spend versus Save Challenge. But as a quick snapshot, when I say costs that aren’t delivering a positive return on investment, a return on investment means that you are making back more money than you are spending on the thing. So sometimes what can happen is that we invest in something and we don’t actually proactively take the time to analyze is this making me money or is this just a cost? Again, I’ll be going deeper into this inside the challenge. So make sure you come and join us. It’ll be live. Um, if you wanna find out more about how you understand if an investment is making your positive ROI or return on investment.

And the last example that I’m gonna share with you today about how you are wasting your hard-earned business dollars is interest that you are incurring because you aren’t paying your bills on time. Now, maybe this doesn’t resonate for you, but from my experience, a lot of people have done this. So for example, what might happen is that you offered a discount if you pay your bills early or perhaps you have a business credit card or a business loan and you aren’t hitting the bills on time. And so guess what happens? You end up paying interest or a penalty. I get that sometimes you might have a cash flow issue and that’s literally not an option, but I’m talking about here where you just don’t really have a handle on your bills and so you kind of forget about them and then you’re like, oh my gosh, I paid that late again.

That is literally just a waste of money. So it’s something that I really encourage you to do. Get across your bills, make sure that you’re paying them on time. Make sure that you aren’t incurring interest and make sure that you aren’t incurring penalties.

Now, maybe these five resonate with you. Maybe some of them do, maybe none of them do. But the key message that I want you to take away from this episode is that these are your hard earned dollars in business. I want you to really start to be mindful about where you are spending your money and the areas in which you really should be saving it so you can invest it in a savvy or smart way. If you want some help with this, make sure you come and sign up for my challenge.

So those are some of the areas you might be wasting money and you know, again, this is just gonna be a tiny little tease or taster of some opportunities for growth. But I wanna share with you why I’m so passionate about being mindful about the ways that you can save so that you can spend wisely onto things that will make you a positive return, things that will help you to grow that bottom line to make more sales.

Epic investments you should spend your money on

So let me share some epic investments, some ways that you could really help to grow your sales, you help grow that, that bottom line, make more profit in your business. The first example is working with a coach. Now, I know you’re probably thinking, of course she’s gonna say that because she’s a coach. But I mean it seriously, because if you find the right coach, then it can help you to skyrocket your business growth, right? And that’s a bit of a no-brainer. Working with someone who can help elevate you and to step into that next income level, I personally love to invest in coaching or coaching programs or things that will help me to increase the sales in my business.

The next investment which is one of the first things that I encourage business owners to spend their money on is hiring administrative support in hiring a virtual assistant. What I sort of see, and where a lot of business owners get stuck is in that solopreneur phase where they’re doing everything themselves. And if you are wanting to step into your next level of growth, hiring someone to take some of those admin tasks off your plate is an excellent investment that frees you up to step into that c e o work to start thinking like a leader, to start showing up in your marketing like a leader. So I think that hiring admin support at the right level, and again, this is an area that people can overcapitalize in, they can spend too much money on. So it’s important to do this in an intelligent and appropriate way, but hiring admin support is something I really recommend that the business owners do at the right stage.

And the third investment that I love business owners to make because it can really help you to make more money, which is what I’m encouraging you to do, is to invest in paid marketing opportunities. One of the areas that I see a lot of business owners fail to invest in if they’re wanting to grow, is really thinking about what are some things that I could spend money on that would really help me to get more potential clients eyeballs on my brand? Inside the challenge, we’ll be going into this in a lot more detail. We’ll be talking about some of the opportunities, and I am super conscious that this looks different for different business owners at different stages.

So I don’t think there’s one silver bullet that’s right for everyone here, but I really do think that investing in marketing is a great way to get fast house growth. And we know that more sales equals more profit, which is what I’m really passionate about. You work really hard for your money and I think it’s super important that you keep a close eye on how you are spending the money and making sure that you’re doing it in a way that’s gonna have a positive result, to help maximize the profit in your business and minimize your losses.

So I’d love to encourage you to come along to my three day spend versus save challenge. I’m a qualified accountant by trade, as you all know. I’m a CPA and I really wanna talk to you about being really intentional about your investments so that you can maximize your profits. The challenge is just 29 US dollars and I’ve had people who’ve done my trainings before who’ve delivered thousands of dollars back to their bottom line. Go and click on the link in the show notes for today’s episode if you wanna join us for this training.

To sum up what we spoke about today, we’re entering a world where people are feeling nervous about the the future of business. And it doesn’t mean that people aren’t gonna be investing, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be investing in your business, but I really want to encourage and empower you to be more intentional about how you are spending your money. So don’t waste your money on things like team members that aren’t performing. Group coaching programs that you aren’t using are new subscriptions costs that aren’t delivering you a positive return on investment or interest or fees, penalties that you are paying for not paying your bills on time. And I really encourage you to invest in things that will create epic sales growth. And again, these are just a few examples. You know, we’ll be covering more in the challenge, but these look like working with a coach to help you skyrocket your sales, hiring, administrative support, and investing in paid marketing opportunities.

If you’ve been a listener over the podcast for a while, I’d love to ask you to please go and make sure that you hit subscribe or follow on this podcast and I’d be really, really grateful if you could leave me a review or take a screenshot of this episode, share it with your audience, and make sure you tag me on Instagram at Clare_Wood_Coach.

A lot goes into creating a podcast and taking a few minutes out of your time would really mean a lot to me so I can keep producing excellent content that hits the mark for you. Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode, and I cannot wait to talk money with you again next week. I hope you are feeling inspired and excited about what is possible for you when it comes to money.