How Bec grew her profit by 350%

Transcript

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

CLARE: In my nearly eight years of being a business coach and a mentor, something I’ve learned is that most business owners don’t have a strong handle on their business profit. In today’s episode of the podcast, I chat to Bec, the founder of Lemonade Kids, about how she went on a journey of not being in the details of her money to being right across her finances and how this had a really positive impact on her bottom line and business profitability. I can’t wait to show this episode. So let’s dive in.

Welcome to the podcast, Bec.

BEC: Thanks so much. I’m so excited to finally be on your podcast. I am such a big fan of listening to your podcast. Pretty much every second day on my walk. So, yeah, thank you so much.

CLARE: You’ll be able to listen to this interview. I love it. Well, it’s fantastic to have you here, but look, before we dive into our chat today, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with the listeners a little bit about, about your business, eliminate kids and, and exactly what it is that you guys do.

BEC: Yeah, thank you. So yeah, my name’s Bec and I’m the founder of Lemonade Kids.

 Lemonade Kids is a well being organisation for young people where we do proactive and preventative based programs for kids aged 5 to 12 years. So, we licensee of this amazing program called standing strong. The standing strong program was developed by clinical therapists. They’re based in Perth, so a big shout out to them.

But they have developed this program where people who are just really passionate about working with kids. But not necessarily in a clinical or a therapy environment can work with kids in building their life skills around well being building their confidence, their resilience friendship skills. And yeah, so it’s we run a variety of different programs. So we’ve got term programs. We’ve got holiday workshops, holiday camps. Now we do one on one coaching as well. So ultimately we, I like to call this the ultimate kids cheerleader, but we are essentially youth coaches and youth mentors as such.

CLARE: Yeah. Oh, awesome. And you were telling me before we pushed record that you’re in the process of looking at a new and exciting chapter for your business as well. Do you want to share what that looks like?

BEC: Yeah. So the idea of Lemonade Kids came about four years ago and the, the intention has always been to build a space or have a permanent space where the kids can come and feel really safe and comfortable and love every moment of being in this space. For the last, yeah, three years of actually operating, we have been hiring three different venues here in Brisbane and I’ve literally just been working out the back of my car in going around to all of the venues and setting it up and packing it down. And yeah, so the last week we’ve been in negotiations to sign a commercial lease for Lemonade Kids, which is very, very exciting. So fingers crossed. I’m certain that it will all go ahead, but it’s going to be amazing. So yeah.

CLARE: Oh, I just got goosebumps all over. Is there something, you know, one of my previous clients, I went to her space, her commercial space, and I was like, you, you know, you’ve got to be kidding me. This is your space. It’s such a, an amazing feeling to have a physical location. That’s really yours and the businesses. And I’m really excited for you.

BEC: Yeah, absolutely. And just like apart from hiring space, like from the administration side of things, I’ve just been working out of like my little, it’s actually, I think, a storage room in my unit. Like it’s not actually even like a bedroom or a study or anything like that. It’s like a little storeroom to actually work out of. It’s pretty embarrassing but anyway it works. And this year I have been really fortunate to bring on two part time team members and they just come to my house. So they are super, super stoked as well that we’re like collectively going to be having yeah a home that we can work out of as well and then have the kids come along and then join us as well.

CLARE: Exactly. And also let’s just honor the journey because, you know, it’s funny, you know, listeners probably can’t hear it, but, you know, I’ve got this beautiful setup now. My, my office has been styled by an interior stylist, but let’s be honest for many years, I was hovering my laptop at the end of our kitchen table. Then I booted my son out and you know, had this room with this horrendous desk that was made of chipboard that I bought You know, secondhand and, you know, it’s just kind of the evolution happens step by step. And I think it’s important to honor each chapter.

And, you know, my husband at the moment is looking for a commercial space as well, because his team come into our tiny little beach shack and everyone’s gathered around this table in our old little house. But I know that the next phase is coming and yeah, the team is excited when, when they get their space as well. Yeah, absolutely. We could go off on a million different segues around, around this topic, but the main reason I brought you on the podcast today was to chat to you about, about my course, which is called the Profit Academy Foundations. And this course is my, it’s, it’s this little baby of mine because I, I, I’m a CPA by trade. I’m an accountant by trade and something that I noticed coming into small business world when I was coaching a lot of business owners is the lack of, I guess, financial literacy around statements around cash flow and really just around numbers in general in business.

So this is why I created this course and you’ve been one of the beautiful students who’s come to us. I wanted to chat to you a little bit. Today about the Profit Academy Foundations.

So maybe what we might do, let’s start right back at the start before you sort of even, I know that you heard about me through my friend, Emily Osmond, but how would you have described a couple of years ago, your knowledge around business financials?

BEC: You could probably just hear it in my voice <shaking> like..

CLARE: I think that that sums up how a lot of business owners feel.

BEC: Yeah, I think it definitely does. So for me, a couple of years ago even so I did the course 12 months ago with you and prior to that for me I, I would probably say, in relation to my running a business. So this is the first time I’ve ever run a business with lemonade kids. Like prior to doing lemonade kids, four years ago I was working in the commercial the, the corporate sector, sorry. So I was an event and marketing manager. And then coming into running your own business, I knew that there was gonna be lots and lots of learnings, but I was able to transfer a lot of my skillset from events and project management and marketing across.

But the one thing that I really struggled with was finances and more so business accounting. So I’d had experience in running budgets and following budgets, sticking to budgets, but just didn’t realize that there was a whole new space of business accounting that I needed to get my head across. So for me, it was like, I like to kind of think of it like swimming through an ocean. There’s highs and lows, but whenever I came to opening up Xero or talking that by me. Business finances was like, I’d just like run into this, like huge, massive lump of seaweed. And it was just like all over me and freaking me out. Like, so I was really quite anxious around that side of things.

So yeah, we, we were coasting along. Okay. I was surviving. Like I knew looking at my bank statements looking at my Xero and just the like the profit that I was doing okay that I didn’t have any, I didn’t have any debt, for example. So I didn’t have any credit cards or anything like that. I didn’t have to loan any money to survive, but I wasn’t feeling comfortable and I was feeling really Anxious.

So for me and I would meet with my accountant and I would understand certain parts of what she was talking about. Then she would talk about something or other. And it was like going from English to speaking Swahili and I just had this glazed look over my face and she actually laughs about it with me now because she knew that as well. So 12 months on, she’s like, Oh my gosh, you are like killing this. You understand this is great. So yeah, it was, it was stressful in a, in a very summarized word. Stressful.

CLARE: Yeah. And that’s something that a lot of business owners, because this is the thing you don’t know what you don’t know when you start a business. And then suddenly you’re having to navigate through like, Oh my gosh, I’m, I’m running out of cash. I’m, and even to your point, I know I experienced that sometimes with my bookkeep and with my account and sometimes I’d be like, what? And I’ve spent six years studying accounting. So I can’t even imagine what it must be like if you don’t have that sort of background.

Yeah. Yeah. Sir, how did you sort of. come to, I guess, hear about my course or, or this work.

BEC: Yeah. So it was through Emily. So Emily has the, the Modern Marketing Collective and I’m a member with her and it was through Emily. So I knew that, that something had to change and I think I was listening I can’t remember exactly, but I remember just listening to you, whether it was through a podcast or you might have been a guest with her and I just connected with your delivery, your approach and you made things really easy for me to understand just in that one short moment. And I was like, I need to explore this further.

And I think you were then running like a three day profit Booster little mini course, which I signed up to. And within the first, yeah, day of the trainings and doing the live training, I was just like, okay, sign me up because I just could relate to it.

Like you just make things really, really easy to understand and to navigate. And like you said, there was, there’s not much out there. So I’ve been a part of a few different Business coaching groups, but nothing that I guess just made it like you just took the ego away in a sense, like you really connected with me because you took the ego away for me, not just your delivery, but like I was like, it’s okay to feel like this and it’s okay to not know.

But now I have support to understand and the resources that you provided were really clear. And yes, so it was a bit of a no brainer for me at that point in time to sign up. Like, whilst there was an investment financially, I knew that the return on investment. would, would be pretty obvious for me, like in that, in that moment.

Yeah.

CLARE: So let’s talk a little bit about that. I mean, thank you for all of the compliments around the program. I mean, the background is as I shared inside the free training, I actually failed introduction to accounting myself because I came into this university course. And he was speaking Gobbledygook and I’m obviously not bad at accounting because I’ve gone on and done multiple degrees with, you know, distinctions and high distinctions, but I had an experience of someone not explaining things in a clear, plain English way.

And that’s why I’m so passionate about this work because Business finances is so important and as someone who’s been on the other side of it as well, I’m like, how can we try and explain this in a, in a really simple, straightforward way? So I’m really glad that that that hit the mark with you. Yeah.

When it came to the actual process though, because we’ve all been there, you know, where you go, you go, yes, I think I really need this thing. That. There’s, there’s all the emotions that come up when it actually comes to making an investment in your growth or your learning, signing up for a course. Did you experience any of that when you were looking down the barrel of investing in, in the course?

BEC: Yeah, I think, because I had completed a few, well, let’s not, actually, let’s not say completed. Let’s say I had signed up to other courses previously. And I actually you make mention in your course when I I revisited the trainings recently, actually. And it’s like, there’s a stat about how many people actually complete a, an online course. And it’s not very much.

So I’d already signed up to previous courses and. They made me either feel really overwhelmed with the amount of content, and I felt like I was always behind the 8 ball and that I wasn’t doing enough, or it just was too long, and time management being at the, at that point in time, I was a solo, you know, solo, solo business owner, so trying to do everything in the business was just too much.

So, the the process of making that decision was based around I guess what you were offering. It was a short course. Like it was over six weeks, I think, or six or seven weeks. And the there was a lot of interaction after, it was just the delivery of the process that you had set it up at that really attracted me to go, okay, I think I can do this.

It’s achievable for me to be able to do this.

CLARE: Yeah. A hundred percent. And the reason I’ve done that with both my courses is because I’ve done courses where they go for literally months and months and months and there’s so much fluff in them and I’m like, just get down to the good stuff here. We’re all busy business owners and you know, that’s what that’s sort of how I teach is trying to just… what’s the stuff that I actually really need to know and leave out a lot of the whole history lesson that comes along with it as well. It’s just like what are the key things that most small business owners would need to be across in, in their business.

When you first dove into the program, what were some of the big things that, you know, what were some of the big takeaways that you had?

BEC: There were quite a lot actually.

And really For a business owner who’s thinking about doing the course, the things that I loved about the course and the takeaways is that the, how you simplified the financial and the accounting lingo was a resource like, right, I think it was like in the foundations 101 type of thing in the first module and breaking that down, was really, really clear for me and that made sense and that was a bit of a takeaway and a breakthrough for me to understand even what personal tax was personal income tax versus company tax. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, there’s so many taxes, but just little things like that, that my accountant would be talking to me about and she’d be explaining it to me 10 times, and I still didn’t understand, but for whatever reason, how you delivered it, I was like, Oh, that makes sense. So that the way that you break down the lingo working at your adjusted profit was a game changer and that mindset.

I found a lot of the modules was in relation to shifting your mindset across your finances and the adjusted profit practice that you had really helped me do that.

So, in my Xero account, I could see that I was either at a deficit or just breaking even. And I knew that I, again, I was being, I was living comfortably. I could pay my rent. I could pay my bills and I was paying myself a very minimal wage and I was getting by. So I was surviving and that was okay. But when you were looking at the figures, I didn’t feel confident. I didn’t feel great, but it wasn’t until I did the adjusted profit exercise that then I looked at the figures and I walked out and I said to my partner, Matt, I actually made well grand last year. Holy macros. Like I’m, I’m winning at this. I am so winning. And he was like, Okay. He’s a business owner himself of 18 years and he’s like, for him, it was a no brainer. But for me, I wasn’t feeling confident because I wasn’t seeing it.

So doing the adjusted profit, I then automatically felt comfortable and confident and yeah, then I was, Succeeding rather than surviving. Even like the basic things are setting up the different accounts in relation to having a savings account, a transactional account and also the big one for me was the tax and super.

So prior to that was always like, would come back and I would be like going, Oh, why are you taking my money? Why stop stealing my money? And then shifting that mindset and you’re very clear that there’s 2 things in life. There’s death and taxes and a tax account, and seeing it as, that’s not your money. Like I worked out what the percentage was or what the amount that I should be putting into my that account. With my accountant helping me work out that amount, sorry. And I, again, a mindset shift of like, well, that’s not my money. And I was able to accumulate that. And then when BAS came, I always had enough money there. So I was like, cool, here you go.

So the savings account was great as well, because then you could just, yeah, it was just making progress. And so separate accounts was really, really fantastic. Having money dream team was a really big one as well for me. My best friend, she helped set up my Xero and we think very similar, but she loves numbers and numbers for me, just still to this day like I’m a very creative person. I’m very visual person. When I was studying university or even my year 12 exams, I would have my maps. That’s how I learned was my maps and visually, but numbers doesn’t really… it is what it is, but she supported me and she never made me feel insignificant. So if I needed to ask her, like, what’s one plus one, she’d be like, Oh, Bec, it’s two… and you’re doing such a great job. She helps me with my bookkeeping and then my accountant, having a new accountant was amazing and she’s really supportive. So creating that dream team around that, my coaching, like with the kids on the one on one stuff, it’s about a village approach and that’s, you know, what I was like, Oh, again, another mindset shift. Let’s apply this to an area of your life that you’re struggling in, which is your finance businesses. So let’s grow a village around that and how to support you, which is being super, super helpful. , I think, all just within the first three modules or two modules like that… there’s so much more to the course, like the cash flow side of things. There’s a lot of mindset activities about goal setting your vision. Coming up 12 months since doing the course, I actually have printed out all of the workbooks. I’m going through them again and, and it’s been really lovely to see the progress and read back on my notes and be like, Oh my gosh, I’ve done that. That’s amazing.

I think my goal was for my profit per month that I wanted to make was $5,000 and I’ve been able to smash that. Where prior to that, I was like making like a grand if that per month, like, and I thought $5,000 was like amazing.

So, yeah, and I think the other thing I loved about and it comes back to that village approaches, the live trainings that you did Clare is that you’re with other like minded people and you’re with, you’re having conversations and understanding and saying that you’re not the only one in that going through those challenges was really, really powerful for me. So, especially because again, at that point in time, I was only working by myself, so no one else is looking at the numbers or anything like that.

CLARE: Yeah. And we do form like a little click inside my courses, everyone ends up connecting and swapping details. And, you know, often it’s the same people who are showing up at the same call. So yeah, that’s so nice that you enjoyed that.

So let’s talk a little bit about your profit growth, because as much as this is a business finance course, I had to, I couldn’t not add in this module about Revenue about profit growth, because I thought, I don’t want people to get to know all their numbers and get there and be like, Oh, that sucks. Now what? I really, really, really wanted to have a module in there, which is the final module which is all about profit growth. And you know, one of the bonuses is 50 ideas of how to add more revenue into your business. Did any of this play into the revenue growth that you’ve experienced or the profit growth in your own business?

BEC: Yeah, there was a combination of a couple of things. Certainly being across my numbers, feeling more confident at that point in time. And that might be a different that might feel different for different people as such but for me, I felt more confident at that point in time of understanding my numbers. And then having goals in place and just the narrative, like, it was just a consistent discussion with keeping in touch with my accountant. She was so impressed that I wanted to have a money meeting by the way. She was like, none of my clients thought that, like, this is so proactive, Bec, I love you. Like, of course we can do that. I felt really bad asking her, I thought, oh my gosh, Clare’s asking me to spend all this time.

I knew that there needed to be something with the business, like we were talking, I think offline before, that you get to a certain point, a goal in your business and then yeah, the goal post change and you’re like after something else. And I knew that I needed something else within the business to boost that profit. And I wanted to ensure that it was working smarter and not harder. I felt like I was a bit of a mouse, like on that pedal going so, so fast. So I created two new programs, both which thankfully have been a huge, huge success, and that has contributed to a massive increase in my profit over the last 12 months, which in turn has led to me bringing on not one, but two part time staff members, which that in itself has helped to generate more profit within the business.

And not even financially, but energy wise as well. It does come down to the bottom line, but there’s a whole scope, holistic of scope of running a business, not just the financial side of things. So they were the two main things. The, the possibility of increasing the prices of my programs… I’ve been sitting on that for a little bit because they’ve been the same for the last three years. One of my values is accessibility for families, so yeah, just sitting on that for the moment, but yeah, just exploring different income streams and what that was going to look like. And I was also very fortunate that I applied for a grant and received the Brisbane Lord Mayor’s grant for women in business earlier this year to create an online course which we’re going to base on one of our really popular friendship formula workshop. So it’s about developing friendship skills, which is for the age bracket of 7 to 10 years in particular. At the moment, a lot of kids are really struggling to navigate and develop those skills in the in at school within itself. So yeah, creating some sort of friendly online program. So again, smarter, not harder.

So we introduced a three day camp opposed to doing individual workshops across the holiday, which is what I was doing. And I didn’t want to break it because it was the biggest money earner in my business. My colleague who was working with me at the time, he’s also got a family and he kept planting the seed of a multi day event, and I was just too scared to break something that was working really, really well. But then once I did your course actually and was like, okay, let’s have a look at this, have some clear head space of what this might look like. And once I laid it out, did the numbers, I was like, oh, wow, this, this could work really, really well. And opposed to getting 90 separate bookings, I only need 30 across 3 days. So I’ve been really, yeah, fortunate about having a really great crew around me that’s just been cheering me on the whole time, but bringing ideas to the table when they thought they could see something for me and listening to them. And yeah, I’m working through that. So I’ve been lucky with those three day camps that since we started in December, all of them have booked out every single holiday. So we actually, in December and January is when we first launched it and both of them booked out.

CLARE: And I think it’s one of the things that, you know, across my clients, like my students and my clients, people like, but how do you help people grow? My framework isn’t like you have to do this thing because maybe putting your prices up doesn’t feel aligned for you. Maybe launching a course doesn’t feel aligned for some people. I teach about in foundations is about uncovering how you want to scale your business in a way that feels good and aligned for you. And there’s lots of different ways that you can do that, but it really is going, okay, cool if that’s your game plan, what are you actually putting in place so that you do create the outcomes that you want?

So do you mind sharing? Cause you shared with me earlier, how much has your profit actually grown since coming through foundations?

BEC: I get a little bit emotional about it thinking about it now because where I was 12 months ago and how I was feeling has just been such a big transformation. So this time last year for the previous 12 months I was just making over $1,500. That was it for the year. Like that was my profit for the whole year for the 12 months. Which I was still paying myself a wage, a very minimal wage.

Doing your course, introducing a few different additional programs, shifting my mindset around money… my profit now is like for the last 12 months has been $47, 000. So a percentage increase, it’s like actually two and a half thousand percent increase last year!

Being able to increase my wage as well, which has been one of my goals from last year during the course… all these little wins. I’ve had lots of little wins that have added up to looking at these numbers and just going, Oh wow, that’s, that’s cool. So now I feel like I am, I’m more succeeding, I’m not surviving, which is a huge shift.

CLARE: Yeah. Well, massive hats off to you. I know that doing this work is uncomfortable and a lot of people just want to like, Oh, numbers GO AWAY.

BEC: And I was definitely one of those people. Like there was lots of tears beforehand, lots of anxiety before. Taking the time to push my ego aside, I think that was the biggest thing for me. Like I was always so successful in lots of other areas of my life, but when it came to understanding my finances and business accounting, I didn’t understand it. So I didn’t feel like I was succeeding at it at all. So it didn’t feel great.

CLARE: Well, I’m so proud of you for taking that big brave step and getting uncomfortable. And then also experiencing the growth that comes on the other side of discomfort. We spoke about this as well.

People, you know, when you do something, it’s a bit scary and you come out the other side of it, it’s such an amazing feeling to say, Hey, To be empowered with your money and to know I’m in the bloody driver’s seat of my business. I’m not just hoping I’m making money. You’re like, I’m driving this thing. I’m in control. And I know what levers I can pull to improve my business profits.

BEC: I had to, have a good talking to myself of like, you are here helping children feel stronger from within, like, that’s, that’s my mission and my mantra to them is like, you can do the hard things, we can do hard things, like kids walk out of there and they tell their parents, like one of my parents gave me some feedback of like one of the young boys, they were a wanting to dig a hole or something. It was the middle of the day and she’s like, darling, it’s a bit hot, like, come on, like come back inside. You can do that later. And he’s like, no, but lemonade kids taught me I can do the hard things. And he just wanted to keep going. I was like, yeah, but safety first. But all of these things that I was preaching, I had to put back into practice for myself. Yeah, it was a really, a lovely experience. It’s been a wonderful experience, personal growth and financial growth.

CLARE: Well, it’s been, it was absolutely wonderful having you come through the program and I really appreciate you coming on to share with the listeners today about your experience as well.

 Just so that we can wrap up the call I would really love for you to share because people are probably listening to this feeling really inspired about the work that Lemonade Kids do and wondering how they could be part of it or how they can connect with you. Can you share a little bit about how people can connect with you?

BEC: Yeah, absolutely. So we are predominantly Brisbane based. So we do in person programs such as our weekly term programs where we cover off on a number of different mindset topics. So the Standing Strong program that we deliver has over 40 different mindset topics that we deliver and hold space with the kids. I like to call explore. We like to explore and go on an adventure with each of these topics. And we do holiday workshops and camps one on one training as well, where we can tailor a program more specifically for your child, if they are having some struggles whilst most of our programs are in person, we also do online one on ones through zoom and it’s all still very proactive and practical and Yeah, working with kids across the board from 5 to 12 years online I would sort of encourage those to be maybe 8 years plus just to ensure that they are getting the most out of the experience. But yeah, our website is LemonadeKids. com. au. We’re on social, so please reach out, love connecting with everyone and yeah, be amazing.

CLARE: Thank you, Bec. Thank you so, so much for coming on. If you are listening and you want to connect, I will obviously share all the links in the show notes for today’s episode.

Bec, thank you for coming on and sharing your journey and congrats on your business success.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio