BONUS: How these 3 x business owners scaled their wages

Transcript

Welcome to this special bonus episode of the podcast. Doors are now open to my course The Profit Academy: Foundations. This episode you will hear from past graduates of the course to show to what is possible when you become a master of your money. They vulnerably share how they got right across their business finances; listen in because some of their results are pretty impressive. 

Leah’s Foundations Journey

So, let’s talk a little bit about your decision to jump in and actually join the Profit Academy: Foundations.

LEAH:

Definitely And money is becoming less of a trigger, and I think working with you is helping with that, which is amazing. Thank you very much. But I think for me, the biggest part about Foundations was that it was that, it was the foundations of understanding your money. Money has always seemed scary to me. It’s never seemed evil, but it’s always seemed scary and overwhelming. And I’ve always opened up a spreadsheet, never known where to start, looked at bank statements, had chats with my accountant, and honestly just felt completely overwhelmed. And I knew that that was never a problem previously when I’d been an employee, because somebody else took care of that and I never really had to worry about it.

But since becoming a business owner, for me, it has been really important to have a better understanding of what my business is actually doing. So, I knew it was going to be pretty eye-opening and quite confronting and there was going to be a few things that I came across in my business that I knew I had to change very quickly. But for me, it almost felt like a no-brainer. Like, this is the stuff I need to know in order for me to level up as a business owner and become that CEO. I can’t be worried about or focusing on what my dreams are or what I want to manifest, if I don’t really know a foundational plan of getting there. So, it was almost like that step one, this is what I need to do first.

CLARE:

Yeah. And I know that as we were planning it, you were going, “Oh my gosh.” And it was actually really fantastic, because as I was creating the content, you were sharing, you were like from an overwhelmed business owner’s perspective-

LEAH:

100%.

CLARE:

… you were saying, “This is how I feel. This is what’s overwhelming. This is what’s confusing to me.” So, let’s talk about you jumping into the course. So, you paid to come into the course.

LEAH:

Yep. I sure did.

CLARE:

And let’s dive in and talk a little bit about that. Why did you decide to actually pay to join the course?

LEAH:

So, we did have a discussion around how that was going to look, obviously being on the team and if it was something that I could do from a research perspective and having a better understanding of what you do as a business owner. But for me personally, I do feel there’s a huge energetic transaction when it comes to paying for advice, paying for education, and allowing yourself to level up.

So, for me, as much as the offer was there, I knew that in order for me to fully invest and almost peel back those layers of uncomfortable action, I knew that I had to put my money where my mouth was. So, it felt like a no-brainer to pay for it. And I would pay for it again and again. Honestly, I would.

CLARE:

I totally know what you mean. One of my best friends is Steph Taylor and she runs online courses and launching and things like that. And when she launched her program, I said to her, “I want to be part of it.” And she’s like, “Well, maybe we can.” And I was like, “No, I want to pay and I want to pay full price.”

LEAH:

Totally.

CLARE:

Because for me, there’s a different kind of energy. So, another friend of mine gifted me her membership and she’s like, “I want you to join in. I know that you’d love the work in here.” I never once logged in.

LEAH:

And I must admit, I have been in the exact same position.

CLARE:

And it sounds so bad, because what my friend does is fantastic, the work that she does, but I just didn’t value it, if that makes sense?

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

I was there being like, “Oh, it’s free.” Whereas when I pay for things … Like, I showed up to every single one of Steph’s calls.

LEAH:

Yeah. You have more skin in the game.

CLARE:

So much more skin in the game.

LEAH:

And it’s almost like you feel like you need to prove to yourself that the investment was worth it. And you’re going to take as much of the information out of it as you can because you’ve invested in it. You’ve put your money into this program, you want to be able to just reap as many of the rewards as possible.

CLARE:

And for me, the accountant side of my brain, I always like to get a return on my investments.

LEAH:

Yes. Same.

CLARE:

So, I’ll be like, “If I’ve spent this much money on this particular thing, I want to get my money back.”

LEAH:

Totally.

CLARE:

And so, I totally can relate to that. I’m like, “Well, I have to show up. I have to get the return for spending money.” Because that’s money that could have gone to my family. That’s money that could have gone to me, to other parts of my business.

LEAH:

Totally.

CLARE:

And I’m like, “No, I want to get my money back.” So, I can totally relate to that. And it’s funny … Sorry, again. I know I digress. But I think this might be helpful to the listeners. Something else that I actually love to do is do payment plans.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

And even though a lot of time, I have the money to pay for the program, the course, whatever, the reason why I like it is that I joined a manifestation course. I could have paid cash for it, but I took the 12-month pay it off option. And every month when the payment will pop up, I’m like, “I’m logging back into that bloody course.”

LEAH:

I’m exactly the same.

CLARE:

I’m like, “If I’ve got to pay money,” I’m like, “I’m going to jump back in and open a module or do a meditation or work through a workbook.” And I like that there’s that prompt or reminder, because I think sometimes once you’ve paid for a course, it’s like, “Well, the money’s gone now anyway.”

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

I actually like paying. I don’t know if that’s weird.

LEAH:

I’m exactly the same, because to me, it’s almost as if you’ve paid it … Like you said, it’s paid, it’s gone, it’s out of your bank account. You’ve received whatever it is you received, and you don’t feel like there’s any constant reminder. So, I love payment plans in the same fashion, because it’s that constant reminder of, “Remember that thing that you paid for? Remember that help that you needed? Maybe you should go back in and view it again.”

CLARE:

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, it was really special to me that you chose to invest in it. And from my side, I kept saying to you, “This is going to change your life.” I feel so confident in the program if people are willing to lean in, do the work, follow the process.”

LEAH:

100%.

CLARE:

I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t believe in it so much. And I think that’s why the launch was so successful, is because-

LEAH:

I agree.

CLARE:

… everyone was like … Firstly, this is something that everyone struggles with the finance side. Not everyone, a lot of people really struggle with understanding-

LEAH:

Yeah. But just like the basic understanding, those actual foundations of those things you need to know as a business owner. I think a lot of people, regardless of whether you’ve done it 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or five years ago, it’s something that you need to refresh, because things change, business change. So, I think it’s really important for a lot of business owners, regardless of where you’re at and what stage of business you’re at, to do some sort of reeducation around this, because it’s super important.

CLARE:

And when you say reeducation, I mean, when do people even learn this, right?

LEAH:

I never did.

CLARE:

Yeah, they don’t teach you about numbers at school.

LEAH:

No, not to this extent anyway.

CLARE:

100%. What I want to do is just, if it’s all right with you, just take a moment and backtrack and maybe explain a little bit about the course, because I’ve realized we’ve just doven … Doven, is that a word? Dived?

LEAH:

Dived.

CLARE:

Dived straight into it.

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

Dove straight into it?

LEAH:

Possibly.

CLARE:

So, a little bit about the Profit Academy: Foundations. So, if the listeners don’t know, I’m a qualified accountant by trade. I’m a CPA, which means I’ve gone on, I’ve done my undergraduate qualification with a major in accounting. And then I went and did my postgraduate qualification in accounting. Truthfully, I failed my very first university subject in accounting.

LEAH:

Wow.

CLARE:

I was a straight A student at school. I had never failed anything ever in my life. And I failed intro to accounting. Now, the reason is obviously not because I’m bad with numbers, because I’m not.

LEAH:

No. Very good with numbers.

CLARE:

I was doing advanced maths at school, which I got an A+ in. I’ve gone on to obviously complete multiple qualifications. But what I’ve realized in hindsight was that my lecturer, the person teaching it, was just using all of these complex gobbledygook, like, “Blah, blah, blah, I’m smarter than you are.” And it just so went over my head. And I’m like, I’m an intelligent person. This is what I’ve found again and again and again with the intelligent business owners that I work with, is that their accountant is speaking a different language.

LEAH:

Totally different language.

CLARE:

And they try and make it seem really complex. And the reality is, once I came to understand accounting, I’m like, “It’s actually not that hard when you know how.” And something that I would say is a bit of a superpower of mine is that I’m good at making the overwhelming stuff seem easy. And this is what my clients have said to me over the years is that they’re like, “I just never even understood where to start. And you’ve made it really simple.”

Over my years in being a coach and being a money mentor, I used to always blend together the money mindset and the practical side, which was great. But I think what happened was that a lot of my communication around my courses and my programs was a little bit blurred. And what I wanted to do with the Profit Academy: Foundations, is split out money mindset and just make this course kind of like an Accounting 101.

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

But I don’t want to call it that, because that sucks.

LEAH:

And it was so much more exciting than Accounting 101.

CLARE:

Yeah. But taking my six years of professional qualifications and my many, many years working in large corporates, in finance and accounting, and as a small business owner to say, “Do you know what? There’s actually a lot of shit that I learn at uni, that you don’t need to know.” And that small business owner, you don’t need to know all of the intricacies of it, but there is a lot of basic stuff that you need to know.

And so, I’ve pulled the key things out that I think small business owners need. I’ve pulled out the budgeting process, pulled out cashflow forecasting. You can’t see because we’re on audio here, but Leah’s doing a little prayer position here. And we can talk a little bit more about what each of these terms mean. And then, the basic terms of accounting.

And one of the things that I’ve even done, I’ve even created a little Finance 101 spreadsheet. It’s something you can print out, have next to your desk, and next time that your accountant says something that’s like, “Blah, blah, blah.” What is that? You look at your little cheat sheet and go, “Oh, they mean that in plain English.”

LEAH:

“That’s what it is.”

CLARE:

So, that’s a little bit about what the Profit Academy: Foundations is, but let’s maybe talk a little bit about your experience inside. So, what do you think’s been the best thing that you took out of the course?

LEAH:

The cashflow forecast, without a doubt has honestly been the biggest game changer. As I’ve said before, I’ve always had this fear of money. I’ve always felt overwhelmed not knowing what was coming in, what was going out. I was really okay in my personal finances and I had that down pat, but from a business perspective, things were just coming and going and I just hoped that there was enough money in the business bank account before it came out, was pretty much where I was before I started Foundations.

But the cashflow forecast has actually given me so much more of an empowerment around money. I know it’s not set in stone. I know it’s not the be all and end all, and this is exactly how it’s going to happen, but I’m so much more prepared and I’m so much more aware of what I have control over now. Whereas before, like I said, it was just praying that there was an invoice that was going to be paid or that invoice was going to come in before a subscription was going to come out. Whereas now, I have it all laid out and I normally do about six to eight weeks in advance. For me, that works. And it has honestly been a game changer.

It’s something that I do look at probably two or three times a week. And not because I’m scared or because I’m worried about what’s in there, but my business changes, contracts finish, new contracts come in, subscriptions change. There’s lots of things that go on in your business. So, I think it’s important for me to feel like I’m constantly hands-on with my money as opposed to that set and forget or pray away what potentially might happen. So, I would probably say, yeah, the cashflow forecast has honestly been the biggest game changer of my business.

CLARE:

Yay.

LEAH:

I’m obsessed with it. Absolutely obsessed.

CLARE:

I love that. And this is something that I’ve been using with clients of mine for years. I had a client of mine, I think I worked with her four years ago, and she said to me, “I still do it every single Monday morning.” If you’re listening and you’re thinking, “What the hell is a cashflow forecast? Why the hell do I need one?” Basically your cashflow is different to your profitability.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

So, a business can be profitable and you can still run out of money.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

So, let me share an example of what this looks like. My husband works in recruitment, and maybe you’re not in recruitment, but business have lots of different business models. But the way that my husband’s business works is that he gets paid big lump sums of money, because the way it works, someone starts a job, he often won’t get paid until six weeks later. Sometimes they even need to give four weeks notice for their job. It can be 10 weeks before he gets the cash.

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

So, the way that it works in your financial reporting is that you’ve made the money. Now, we don’t see that cash for six weeks, sometimes. So, you can see an example of how a business can be profitable and cash poor.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

Equally, I work with lots of digital marketing agencies, companies that do project work. I used to work with an artist that would get massive, big lump sums at a time, but it would take her months to do the work. And so, what a cashflow forecast does is it tells you when your cash is coming in and out, and when.

Now, the reason this is so powerful is that it puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to your finances. So, what I was talking to you about as well, Leah, you were such a superstar. She came to all the calls, she was at the Q&A calls. She was asking the questions. And do you know what? I bloody love pupils like that, because they’re the people who are engaged, they’re interested, and they get the most out of it. But you were there asking questions and one of the things that I said is, you’re like, “What if you don’t have enough cash? What if you look at it and you go-“

LEAH:

“Shit.”

CLARE:

“Shit.” Yeah. And I’m like, but that was happening anyway. You were going to run out of cash, but now you know you’re going to run out of cash.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

And what does that mean that you can do now? Now that you’ve gone through, what are some things?

LEAH:

I think the biggest thing for me is now I can actually look at my business and be like, “What are the other opportunities in my business that I can create other income?” Before, I focused so heavily on the services and the offers that I had, that it was like, “Okay. Well, if I don’t sell those, that’s it.” Whereas now it’s looking at other opportunities and being like, “What can I move? What can I pull in? What can I sell more of? What can I create that’s new for my audience, that’s going to allow me to create another stream of income?”

It’s 100% has been that awareness piece. Like you were saying, I was losing money before, but I just didn’t know. I mean, I knew it was happening, but I didn’t know how to deal with it. Whereas, at least with my cashflow forecast, yes, I was still in a position when I first started that I was going to run out of cash, but I then had ways to fix it, and tangible, practical ways. And I think that’s where Foundation has really helped me is that it’s not … And don’t get me wrong, I love money mindset and that is the next step in my journey, and I can’t wait to tackle that. But for me, I’m a very logical, practical person. Don’t give me woo-woo shit if I can just get out a piece of paper and a pen and be able to just put it all together.

I didn’t need anybody to give me that mindset woo-woo stuff. I really needed someone to give me that practical, “Sit down with a pen and paper, write this out, follow these instructions. Do this every week and you’ll get it.” And that’s what I needed because like I said, I’m a logical person. So, being able to follow steps and a process, and you know how much I love a process.

CLARE:

She loves a process.

LEAH:

Really was extremely helpful. It’s not that I didn’t want to have to think about how to do it, but I wanted to be able to just pick it up every week and go, “This is what I need to look at. These are the numbers that I need to worry about. And this is what I need to follow in order to feel more confident about my business and the numbers in my business as well.”

CLARE:

And there were two things that I included in the course, very intentionally, because I didn’t just want it to be like, “Look at your numbers.” And, “Oh, that’s shit.”

LEAH:

Which would’ve been so overwhelming.

CLARE:

Well, that’s what accounting is, quite frankly.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

So, there’s two things that I put in the course which were, okay, let’s say you look at your numbers. Let’s say you look at your profit and loss statement. Let’s say you look at your cashflow forecast and you don’t like what you’re seeing. The final module is all about, “Okay, let’s grow your profit now.”

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

It’s really, really focused on uncovering growing your business in a way that works for you. So, one of the things that we do inside is we talk about, “Okay, you don’t like where things are at? Let’s come up with some ideas.” And there’s also a bonus, which is called 50 Revenue Boosters. And my dream, my vision for that bonus was that if people get to a point where they’re like, “Oh crap.” That you can literally dig it out and you go, “Right. What are some ideas of what I can do?” Some of them aren’t even creating new offers.

LEAH:

No.

CLARE:

It’s literally like, “Here’s how you can move some cash around. Here’s how you can bring something forward. Here’s how you can bring some cash in sooner rather than later.” And it really was intended to give you some ideas of how you can go, “Okay. If I don’t like where things are at, what are some things that I can do.” You can see that I’m really passionate about this program.

LEAH:

I love it. And I think because you were so passionate about it and you were so ecstatic at what was possible for everybody in the program, I could feel that. I would show up to the calls and I would ask my questions and there were no dumb questions. And sometimes I was like, “Look, if I don’t ask it, nobody else is, and maybe somebody else has the same question.” But it was almost like you were wanting us to be as inquisitive as possible when it came to those calls, when it came to the content that was in the program. Because it was really like, and I’ll say this for myself, I can’t say it for everybody else in the program, but I didn’t know any of this stuff. I had no idea what I was walking into. I had no idea what the type of information I was going to learn and how I was even going to be able to comprehend some of the things that were going on.

But it was so well laid out, it was so well put together. And it was almost in a way that was like, “It’s okay if you don’t get it right now, but you will. And these are the tools that are going to help you to have a better understanding of how to move through this uncomfortable feeling when it comes to your money and being really, really intentional with what you do in your business when it comes to money.” And I think that was the biggest thing for me. I didn’t want to feel like I had to know it. I didn’t want to finish the course and be like, “Okay. I now have to be a whiz with numbers. I have to just understand everything.”

I’m still learning and I’m still understanding what some of the stuff in my business is, but I’m now so much more confident and I can ask my accountant questions and I can feel more in control of what’s happening in my business. Whereas before, it was just, let’s just see if I make it to the end of the month and have enough money to pay the rent. Which is never a great place to be in. So yeah, it honestly has been a huge shift for me in my business and even personally feeling more empowered about how I run my business and the control and what I don’t have control of.

CLARE:

Yeah. No, I think that this work is stuff that should be taught at school.

LEAH:

Oh my God. Yes.

CLARE:

And one of the things, I guess, that made me do so well at school was that I’m happy to ask questions. And particularly at my school, that made me really uncool. I was bullied massively. Everyone called me Square Bear was my nickname at school, but I’m like, “I don’t care if I look like an idiot because asking questions is how you actually grow.” And so many people will sit there … There’s a saying, “Ask a question, you look like a fool for a minute. Don’t ask the question, and you’re a fool for life.”

LEAH:

Love that saying. Never heard of that, but I love that saying.

CLARE:

Even now with my accountant, I’m a qualified accountant and I have an accountant, and I’ll ask her questions. And sometimes I’m sure she must think, “Don’t you know this?” But I’m like, I forgot it, or I can’t really remember, or I’m not up-to-date on that legislation or that part of … Particularly tax is-

LEAH:

Oh, gosh.

CLARE:

… it’s still a bit of a minefield for me. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for people that haven’t studied accounting. But I’m always happy to ask a question. I’ll go, “Can you explain that to me again?” Or I’m like, “Does that mean this, this, and this?” And I don’t mind, I don’t care being judged because I’m like, I’d way rather ask the question and then be like, “Oh, I get it now.” Or ask the question again and again and again until I do. Because to me, knowledge is power.

LEAH:

Yeah. Totally agree.

CLARE:

And I love when people are happy to ask the questions. And with the course, this is the thing that I want people to do, is to be able to have the confidence to ask their accountant the questions and also have the confidence to, quite frankly, get rid of your accountant if they’re not the right fit.

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

One of the bonuses inside the course is how to hire the perfect accountant. People always come to me and say, “Who’s your recommendation for an accountant?” I’m like, “But hang on, who my perfect fit is, might not be your perfect fit.”

LEAH:

Exactly.

CLARE:

But I show you some questions to ask. That’s what the bonus is all about. So, what I’m going to do, let’s talk a little bit about some of the bonuses. I’m going to give you a pop quiz.

LEAH:

Oh my Lord.

CLARE:

See if you can remember them all.

LEAH:

This will be interesting. Okay.

CLARE:

So, what were some of the bonuses? And with the bonuses, the way that they work is that basically the earlier you join, I want people to jump in. I don’t want you to sit on the fence. And so I go, “If you come in early, you get the bonuses.”

LEAH:

Yeah. And I knew that, and I even knew what the bonuses were. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with them, but I knew what the bonuses were and I knew that if I jumped in as soon as the doors opened, I was going to get them all. So, I was very excited.

CLARE:

Yes. So, we’ve already mentioned the 50 Revenue Boosters.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

Mentioned how to hire your perfect accountant.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

Can you remember what any of the others were?

LEAH:

Oh my goodness, I probably should.

CLARE:

I’ll give you a hint. One has to do with working with your-

LEAH:

Isn’t it the success framework for a bookkeeper?

CLARE:

Uh-huh.

LEAH:

Yes. Good student.

CLARE:

And that’s another cool one that I created. Again, not everyone’s at the stage to hire a bookkeeper.

LEAH:

Yeah. And I’m not, but it was great to know what to look for when I’m at that stage.

CLARE:

Yeah.

LEAH:

That was, I think, big.

CLARE:

And what to start to offload.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

Because again, I find a lot of the time people have an accountant, bookkeeper, and they’re like, “I don’t even know what to ask them to do.” And so that’s again, something I’m like, “Ask them to do this. Make sure you’re meeting with them and covering this in your meetings.” And I really spell it out because otherwise people are like, “I met with my accountant and I didn’t even know what to ask.” And I’m like, “No, this is exactly what you cover inside.” So, it’s the same with your bookkeeper. Things to offload to them, when to offload it. What support to get. Another one of the bonuses inside is the ROI calculator.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

Now, ROI means return on investment. I freaking, freaking love this tool.

LEAH:

It was something that I’d never really had to focus on before I became a business owner. And I must admit, even when I started my business, it still wasn’t something that I’d really even thought about. And I think it wasn’t until I came into the world of Clare Wood and I was following some of your content, and I was like, “Oh yeah, I probably should know not only what I’m investing in, but what I’m actually getting out of that investment.” So, that has been a pretty cool tool to use as my business.

CLARE:

Yeah. So, do you want to maybe, in your terms, as someone who’s come through, explain what that means?

LEAH:

So, for me, I think return on investment is being able to really sit down and have a look at, one, what you’re investing into, whether it’s a course, a program, a coach, software, whatever that is into your business. And being able to actually sit down and calculate to a certain extent, what your value is in return for investing those particular funds.

So, whether that’s an increase in customers, whether that’s an increase in revenue. Whether that’s an increase in, and this is something that I use, an increase in white space in my calendar is a huge return in investment for me. I know that if I invest in a virtual assistant or if I invest in a bookkeeper, I’m going to create more white space in my calendar, which means I can bring on more clients, I can bring on more services. So, for me, that return on investment is really looking at, what else can I bring into my business that’s going to not only level up my business, but also increase my value and my worth as well?

CLARE:

I love that. And it’s something that I use … I guess that I’ve unconsciously been doing it. So, an example of this is with my book, I’ve spent a lot of money writing this book, a lot.

LEAH:

So excited for it to come out.

CLARE:

It’s going to be amazing. Subtle plug for my book. But one of the things that I did when I was working out, I’m like, “What would I need to do to make this money back?” So, basically like, okay, if I’m going to spend this much money, I need to bring on one new client over six months. And for me, I can then go really easily, “Or, I need to sell this many of my course.”

LEAH:

Correct.

CLARE:

And that’s paid for itself.

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

Give or take tax, obviously. But again, we’ll talk about that. It really empowers people. If you are looking at joining the course, the Profit Academy: Foundations, and you go, “Okay, it’s going to be that much money.” And you can then go, “Okay, what would that need to deliver back to my bottom line?” And obviously, I can’t guarantee people will get a return, but for me, I’m like, it’s kind of a no-brainer.

LEAH:

[inaudible 00:35:38] it’s a no-brainer.

CLARE:

You start to go, “Oh, I could save money in this space.” Or, “I could add extra revenue into my bottom line.” But it’s giving you the tools to make decisions around everything.

LEAH:

Yeah. Like I said, it’s that awareness.

CLARE:

Yeah.

LEAH:

Once you know what you need to do and you have an understanding of where your business finances are at, you can make those informed decisions. And I think it makes it a lot easier to do that when you have a much better understanding of what’s actually happening in your business bank account.

CLARE:

For sure. So, to wrap up, I know this has been a big plug fest, let’s be honest.

LEAH:

But I’m obsessed with it.

CLARE:

Well, the reason I asked you to come on, it was because you talk about how empowered you feel with your finances now. I’ve seen the shift in your confidence, and that’s why I said, “Hey, would you mind coming on and sharing with the listeners what you share with me privately?”

LEAH:

Definitely.

CLARE:

I really appreciate you coming along. But what we might do to wrap up, let’s start with, I’d love for you to share maybe where you were at before you jumped in, and then afterwards we’ll jump to how you feel now. What are the tangible effects that it’s had?

So, let’s backtrack to where you were when you made the big decision to jump in. Again, it must have been another scary investment decision.

LEAH:

Huge investment.

CLARE:

So, let’s talk about, where were you at, at that time? How did you feel about money, numbers, finances?

LEAH:

At that time, I was still extremely uncomfortable with money and finances. It was very much head in the sand. If I don’t look at it or if I don’t know it’s there, then I don’t have to worry about it. I had always, I think, been that way with money for such a long period of time, even personally. It was almost like if I expected something bad to happen, then I could just prepare myself for the bad and then I could deal with it, which obviously is not a very mentally healthy way of dealing with money, but it was something that I’d always done.

“Okay, I know it’s going to blow up, so I’ll just wait for it to blow up and then I’ll fix it, and then I’ll wait for the next blow up.” So, that was pretty much where I was at, even from a personal perspective, but definitely from a business perspective. I hadn’t really thought a lot about the future of my business, because it wasn’t something that I had started intentionally, so to speak. So, for me, it still felt like, well, I’m just continuing what I’m doing, making money, paying the bills, just getting from day to day. So, it was a pretty dire situation, pre-Foundations, and I’m going to be honest, yeah, it wasn’t great, but that was definitely one of the reasons that I wanted to do it, because I knew that I couldn’t continue doing that exact same thing.

CLARE:

Yeah. Expecting a different outcome.

LEAH:

Totally.

CLARE:

Yeah. That’s a whole other episode.

LEAH:

Oh my God, it is.

CLARE:

About how we repeat the same thing and go, “I wonder why this keeps happening?” It’s like, “Because you keep doing the same thing again and again.” Anyway, that’s more going down the mindset route. So, let’s chat about where you’re at now, and not just in terms of confidence, I think, but has there been any translation into either your profitability or your cashflow position?

LEAH:

100%. So, if we take confidence with numbers and a better understanding completely off the table, I have managed to, since I joined Foundation to 4X my weekly income that I pay myself.

CLARE:

4X?

LEAH:

4X, people, 4X.

CLARE:

Wow.

LEAH:

It has been an absolute game changer, purely because I know what I’m doing now. I mean, that sounds really cocky, but I have so much more of an understanding and I’m so much more confident about paying myself what I’m worth.

CLARE:

Sure.

LEAH:

And I think that is a huge part of it. I never thought I was worth paying myself a wage. And when I say 4X my wage, this is play money to me. So, this is outside of investments or expenses. This is just money that I actually get to live the life that I’m trying to create for myself. So, being able to do that and not freak out at the same time, wondering if it’s possible, is it worth it? Has been huge.

And I changed it in my cashflow forecast, and it’s something that I’ve updated for the next six to eight weeks, and I’ll continue updating as I move forward. And sometimes it goes up and sometimes it goes down, depending on what my cashflow looks like. But knowing that that’s my base and where I sit and knowing that I have been able to do that, has been huge. I never thought that I would be able to confidently increase what I pay myself, without freaking out and putting the money back in the account, I think has been huge for me.

CLARE:

Yeah. And that’s one of the things that we spoke about, was about wages, profit, how they all connect to each other. Because that’s what we’re in business for, right?

LEAH:

Mm-hmm.

CLARE:

It’s to be able to go, “I want to be able to pay myself more. Can I? Can I not?” If I do want to pay myself more-

LEAH:

What does that look like?

CLARE:

Yeah. What does it look like? And I don’t think a lot of people necessarily make that connection.

LEAH:

No.

CLARE:

They’re just winging it and going, “Oh gosh, I hope this all comes together.” And yeah, I love that. That’s a massive, massive win.

LEAH:

It was huge. And I think the day that I messaged you to say that I’d done it, I was shaking as I was sending you the message. I transferred it first into my account, and then I was like, “Oh my God, this is actually happening.” I dreamt of the day that I would be able to pay myself that much money each week, and it’s fucking here.

CLARE:

And it just gets to keep on getting better.

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

I mean, this is the cool thing about this work is that once you know what to do … And it doesn’t mean that things don’t go up and down.

LEAH:

Exactly.

CLARE:

They do. But you’re in the driver’s seat.

LEAH:

100%.

CLARE:

If things aren’t going the way you want it to, you go, “Cool. Okay. I know what levers I need to pull.”

LEAH:

Yeah.

CLARE:

Yeah. And I’m really excited for you. You deserve every success. I know I say this to you all the time, but-

LEAH:

Thank you.

CLARE:

… publicly as well. You absolutely deserve it. And everyone listening, same. You deserve to be out of the cycle of bloody feast and famine.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

And the best way that I can encourage you to do that, obviously the mindset work, and I am creating a program as well, to help in that space. That is massive. But in terms of the actual practical-

LEAH:

Couldn’t agree more.

CLARE:

… like the practical, practical money stuff, it’s so empowering.

LEAH:

It is.

CLARE:

And I hear this again and again and again from people that they’re like, “Oh my gosh, now I feel so much more in the driver’s seat of my business.” And whether you join the course or not, do this work. Go and learn your finances. Go and learn how to do forecasting, because once you have a better handle on it, honestly, it’ll increase your confidence and it will increase your bank balance.

LEAH:

And I love the fact that it is increasing my bank balance.

CLARE:

Money. Money, money, money.

LEAH:

I mean, if that’s the worst thing that can happen with you from joining Foundations, I’m pretty sure there’s other things you can be worried about.

CLARE:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so, so much for coming on and sharing your experience.

LEAH:

Thank you.

CLARE:

I’m incredibly grateful that you invested in the program and that you paid full price for it as well.

LEAH:

Yes.

CLARE:

And I’m incredibly grateful for everything that you do for me and my business.

LEAH:

Thank you.

CLARE:

Leah, the Productivity Queen. I will put the links for Leah’s … She’s got programs. I’ll put the link to go and follow her on Instagram and to reach out and connect with her, if you want help with your systems, with your productivity, or if you just want your ass kicked. I would say that’s definitely a-

LEAH:

It’s one of my favorite services that I offer.

CLARE:

Yeah. It’s funny. She’s like, “I can’t believe people pay me to yell at them to get things done.” And I’m like, “But that’s what your forte is.”

LEAH:

Yeah. It is effective. It is effective.

CLARE:

It’s very effective. It’s one of my favorite things that we do together is that you get on and you’re like, “Clare, where’s this?” I ignore you. You then chase me again, and then I get things done. And that’s your slogan, isn’t it? “Get shit done.”

LEAH:

Yeah. Just get shit done.

Erin’s Foundations Journey

Would you mind sharing who some of the people that you’re currently working with are?

ERIN:

Yeah. So we’re not working with the festival itself, but we are working on campaigns for comedians that will be appearing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. So people like Tommy Little, Mel Buttle, Lano & Woodley, we’ve got some campaigns lined up for those artists. We also are working on some music venue clients, Northcote Theatre in Melbourne is one of those. We work with different touring promoters, so DRW Entertainment. We’re also working on Brunswick Music Festival, which is coming up. That campaign just launched this week. So we’ve got a fair bit happening.

CLARE:

You sure do. And you’ve got some amazing clients. So you guys obviously know your stuff in this space. I will be sharing your details at the end of the episode if anyone is in this sector and would like some help with their social media marketing and overall just getting their events out there, selling out tickets. So thank you so, so much for sharing a little bit about that. But the reason I invited you on the podcast today was to talk about, you guessed it, money. And I thought maybe what we might do, let’s start back at the beginning of how we came to be working together, and then we can talk a little bit about your journey when it comes to managing the finances in your business.

ERIN:

Yeah, sure. Our background, it’s myself and my business partner who started the business and we are creatives. And we met working in music venues way back in the day, the Corner Hotel, Northcote Social Club, those kind of venues. And I ran all the publicity and Ash was involved in the booking side of things and our brains are quite creative-minded. So financial literacy wasn’t really something that was at the forefront of our minds. Obviously, it’s a part of understanding the campaigns that we work with, understanding the maths involved in that. But when it came to figuring out how to set up a budget for the business or how to split out our income and expenses and read a balance sheet, all that sort of stuff, we had no idea and we were pretty much just figuring out our own way through it for a few years.

In 2021, we got onto Xero, but still had no idea what we were doing with it. And essentially, when we started working with you, we had some pretty big growth goals, but also just, I think, a complete, well, not complete, but a bit of a lack of understanding of our numbers and how to manage things and had maybe entrusted a little bit too much of the management of that to our accountant and bookkeeper and realized quite quickly that things weren’t being managed properly and we needed to take back the reins on some of that stuff. And it’s something we do want to have managed by a team, but I think it’s important for us to know the basics of that stuff so that we can interpret the data and know when things are going the right way and when things are going the wrong way and when we need to investigate further.

CLARE:

Yeah, 100%. It’s funny, money isn’t something that really gets taught about a lot, is it?

ERIN:

No, not at all.

CLARE:

It’s not. Both personal finance and business finance, it’s just not a skill that they teach you at school. And yet it’s so important. It’s such a crucial and integral part of our lives. And I tend to work mostly with creatives, and this is something that I see a lot is that people are excellent at what they do, like you and Ash are. You’re experts in your field, but finance isn’t something that people are taught. And to your point, what I see a lot is that people engage experts in this space and think, “Hopefully, that’s taken care of.” And unfortunately, a lot of times what I see is that the accountant either doesn’t explain things properly or you go, “I assume that they’re taking care of it all.”

ERIN:

Yeah, absolutely. So we would get sent our balance sheets and our BAS statements every quarter and say, “Can you review the numbers?” But I didn’t know what I was looking at and I was like, “I trust that it’s fine and that you’ve got it handled.” But yeah, I think I’ve realized in the last six months in particular, but definitely the last year as well, that I need to have a bit more of an understanding of the basics so that I can know what I’m looking at and can make better financial decisions for the business and also as we grow, feel really confident that we’re in a safe place financially.

CLARE:

Yeah, I love that. So what are some of the ways maybe that you started to recognize that this was a problem?

ERIN:

I came back from maternity leave last May, so I’d taken a big step back from the business, and when I came back, dove straight back into creative land and building the business land and getting really excited about that. We had a staff member at the time, she left a few months down the track, my business partner went on holiday. And I think around then there was just maybe a misunderstanding of who was managing what in the business because we had an accountant and a bookkeeper. I thought that they were handling the whole thing. It turned out some of it had been handled in-house, but it was just a little bit of a miscommunication of a situation and realized we were making investment decisions that weren’t actually based in reality. And we’ve never taken out loans or credit cards or anything like that to fund this business.

It’s been bootstrapped the whole way and grown month on month based on our… We’ve invested back from the growth that we’ve had. But I think what happened was we overcommitted a little bit because we didn’t understand the basics of our numbers and it was a little bit of a tumultuous readjustment time in the business. And then we ended up just being a bit behind on our tax bills, on our super bills without realizing that we’d gotten to that point. And we’ve pretty much caught up completely now and we’re getting back into that positive territory, but it’s just not somewhere we ever want to be. We are quite conservative when it comes to managing our numbers, but it helps to know what they are to be able to do that.

CLARE:

100%. And look, I need to write a book about of all of the horror stories that I’ve seen of clients of mine because I’ve worked with someone, she was turning over a million dollars a year in her business, which on the face of it you go, “Whoa, how could anyone not be comfortable with that?” But the reality too is that as your business grows, your business is scaling and you’re bringing on team members and things like that, this is more than ever when you need to stay in the detail of it. And exactly the same thing happened to her. She had entrusted her finance team and presumed that it was all being taken care of and she had a colossal tax debt that was just hanging around her neck and she’s like, “I can’t even see how I’m ever going to pay this off.”

It was a really, really, really stressful experience for her. And on the face of it, she’s got a million-dollar-a-year business and yet with this massive debt. And I think this is the thing why I’m so passionate about this work that I do is because I’ve seen this happen to so many business owners where you think that the team are going to let you know what needs to happen when it needs to happen, and unfortunately, they don’t. So I love that you acknowledge that’s something you’re like, “No, we want to really step into our CEO space about it and really learn how to master our money.” But you guys came to me for the reason of working in the space of private coaching. You had this thriving business and you just wanted to take it to that next level in terms of growth and how to expand and things like that. So I think that the finance thing was just part and parcel of that process.

ERIN:

Absolutely, yeah.

CLARE:

I’ve had clients over the years who are like, “I really don’t want to do the spreadsheet stuff, I just want to grow my business.” And I’m like, “I’m sorry, but the two have to happen in parallel because otherwise, like I said, you’ll end up in this position where you’re ticking those big numbers and you still feel broke because I’ve seen that so many times.” So I love that you’ve come on that journey and really got there. As part of private coaching with me, one of the things that my clients get is they get access to all of my programs. So I had the course, the Profit Academy Foundations, and I love that you jumped in and started working through it. So that’s really what I wanted to have a bit of a chat to you about today. So share with me why you said, “I’m going to go through and really tackle this course and really dive in and get across the numbers.”

ERIN:

Of course. Well, as you know, Ash and I are pretty keen on systems and it’s something that we’re always looking to improve in the business. I have never minded a spreadsheet, but I haven’t known where to start and I haven’t had systems for it. So, getting templates and understanding how to use them and best practice stuff, I was so keen for that, so that was a big motivator. Understanding Xero definitely was another motivator there and being able to interpret the numbers and do things smarter in the business. Something we had been asking of our finance team for quite a long time was we wanted to understand it more, we wanted to be more strategic, but we weren’t really getting much direction or support in that area.

And I think we didn’t really know where to turn until we came across you and your content and it just was so beautifully laid out in terms of understanding how the programs work, understanding what spreadsheets should look like for a business like this. We’ve hacked together our own spreadsheets of how to manage this stuff and it had been working but not in a very efficient way and not set up in a way that would help us grow. So it was really good to get that baseline and go, “Oh, this is what it should look like and this is what we should be doing.” Even from a regular touchpoint of view, checking every week with each other what the cash flow situation is, monthly, looking at the budget, all of that sort of stuff.

CLARE:

So had you ever done a budget before coming through the course?

ERIN:

No.

CLARE:

And you have a bit of a giggle, but this is my experience. I would say 90, 95% of small business owners don’t have a budget. And a lot of people cruise along and seem to get by. My background is working for massive big corporates and there is no way a listed company would not have a budget because the thing is, as you get bigger, like I said, the actual stakes get higher. People think, “I won’t need to worry about my money,” but actually, the stakes get higher because you’ve got more teams, more expenses, more overheads that come in. And having a budget is just such a great way to go, “Where are we heading and what are we investing to get there and how much money will we actually make?” So the other thing that you touched on there that I want to talk a little bit about is the term, cash flow. So what does cash flow mean to you now and where were you before and why do people need to understand what cash flow is and use cash flow forecasting?

ERIN:

Look, probably before I hadn’t thought about it in the sense that I think about it now, the way we had been looking at our bank account was just like we had the one account, all of the money, taxes, super, all of that was in the one account and we were just happy if we were at a certain buffer. And there were so many reasons why that was holding us back from a financial point of view, but also a mindset point of view. Because in our minds, this is a bit of a side note, but we had a number in mind and as long as we were around that we were happy, but it wasn’t supporting our growth. But from a management point of view, wasn’t looking day-to-day, week to week on what was coming in, what was going out, what our bills were, because we had this buffer in place, right?

But that buffer, the number might be the right number, but a month or two into the quarter, that number might be the same, the total, but a third of that could be tax owings and we were still spending as if the total amount in that account was what we had to spend. I just felt everything was foggy. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was oblivious to it as well. I was a little bit investment happy. Happy to just sign up for things without really having consciousness around what the quarterly owings from tax and super point of view might be. But the cash flow now, especially since working with your spreadsheets, and I’ve used this in my personal budgeting now as well with my partner getting through Christmas, it was like, “We’ve got some big expenses coming up, let’s make sure that we’ve got enough money in the bank and that we’re going to be able to cover the mortgage and all the bills and all of that sort of stuff.”

And it’s been such a relief and a weight off the shoulders to be like, “No, it’s handled and we’ve got it covered.” So just looking at it week on week, and at the moment, I probably actually jump in there a lot more than once a week. I jump in it every other day and just seeing what income’s coming in, what bills are going out, if we’re adding a new expense to the list, adding that to the spreadsheet and seeing how that’s going to play out over the next month or two or three months at the most. And just knowing what’s coming up, I feel having that visibility over it, I feel so much more confident and calm, even if it’s like, “Oh, well, that week is looking like it’s going to be a little bit under. What are we going to do to bring in some more income?” So it’s motivating as well.

CLARE:

There is so much gold in here that I want to pull apart. The first thing I wanted to touch on that you’d mentioned was about your buffer. And I know that when we first got into these numbers, and this sort of happens a lot when I do this work with people, is they’re like, “This is so depressing.” And I was saying to you guys, “You are in such a stronger position than a lot of other businesses that I’ve worked with.” And hopefully, that sometimes gives you a bit of a confidence boost as well. I’m like, “A lot of businesses don’t have a buffer like you did.” A lot of businesses have a lot of debt hanging over their head, like various debt in various places. And I think regardless of what’s going on from a financial position, this is what I say to people all the time, it’s better to know than to pretend it’s not going on until it’s too late. It’s better to go, “Okay, cool, this is the situation.” And then you go, “Okay, we can plan for that.” That’s the first thing.

The second thing that you mentioned that I wanted to touch on is, and this is diving a little bit into the area of money mindset, but it’s important, it’s relevant, which is that I find that people tend to have one of three blocks. They have a fear of investing in their businesses. They love to have this big cash buffer and they’re like, “I can’t spend a cent on anything.” This was actually me in the early stages of my business. I spent no money on anything, the accountant in me. I did all my design work myself, I built my website myself, it was disgusting. And I just refused because my accounting brain was like, “Don’t spend any money.” And it took a couple of years for me to see all of my peers leaping ahead and I’m like, “Why the hell am I still here? What are they doing?”

And they were working with coaches, they had beautiful websites, they were running a podcast, they were doing all these things that involved investing into the business. And I realized I can either stay stuck here or I’ve got to start to lean in a bit. So that’s the first block. The second block, the opposite is the fear of saving. And then this is where we see people who are so optimistic about it all that they don’t have a buffer like you did. They don’t have a buffer at all. Usually, they’ve got a ton of debt and anytime they get money, they just spend it straight away. And sometimes I see this happen with businesses that experience really rapid growth.

If someone’s used to making $30,000 a month and suddenly they’re making a hundred, a whole bunch of stuff comes up and then suddenly they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got so much money in the account, it feels weird to me.” So they go and just spend it on crap just to get rid of it because they feel uncomfortable. So that’s a block in holding. And the third block is a block in receiving is the other one. So again, you might hear snippets of each of these things, but sometimes a block in receiving. And I think that maybe you guys might have been a little bit guilty of this.

ERIN:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

CLARE:

Erin and Ash are the nicest two people, which is great, but in business sometimes, you have to have boundaries around how much you’re willing to give. And one of the things that sometimes can hold us back from growth is giving, giving, giving, and doing all this work for free and not charging appropriately for that. And this can be another block because what happens is you’re busy, busy, busy, and people just start to, when you do things for them, do bonuses for them all the time, they come to expect it, right?

ERIN:

Totally, yeah. We literally had a conversation about this, this morning. It came up again with the client.

CLARE:

And that could be another block. And sometimes it’s not even that the client’s not willing to pay you. I’ve seen examples. When I say to someone, “Oh, is that any extra?” And people go, “Oh no, that’s fine, I’ll just do it for you.” And I’m like, “Cool.” And I’m like, “I would’ve been happy to pay, but if they’re going to do it for free, well.” And then what happens the next time you come to expect, “Well, they just do that for free.” So learning to say, “Actually, I deserve to be paid for the work that we do,” you literally transform businesses. You help people sell at their events that are making a ton of money. You deserve to be compensated appropriately for that.

ERIN:

Yeah, absolutely. It came up again today because we had a client’s show selling so well that they wanted to add extra dates and there was, “Can you edit this ad and can you run this?” And it’s just automatic in us and it’s an unlearning of how we’ve behaved in these situations like, “Yeah, sure. It’s not really in the package, but this time, we’ll do it for you.”

But then that happens again and again and again, and our boundaries are not good. So we’re definitely practicing holding each other accountable to that, even if one of us needs to play bad cop in the situation, not even bad cop, but just hold the boundary so the other one can still provide the service and feel okay about that.

We’re just trying to find the best way to do that. And we do find, even talking with new leads, a lot of event clients don’t necessarily have a huge budget starting out. There’s a lot of creatives in the industry and we just find ourselves really liking people and wanting to help them and seeing so much potential, but we need to be really careful to not undersell ourselves because it just puts our own business at risk as well.

CLARE:

Oh, 100%. And it’s really hard when you do have a big heart and you want to help people. It can be really, really hard to draw these boundaries. But the reality is, when it comes to money, if people are happy to pay you and you’re not charging them appropriately, then it’s going to have an effect on your cash flow. And I know that something that I see is this is where business owners approach burnout, is they’re working, working, working, not charging what they should be. Yeah, it’s not helpful for anyone if your business doesn’t succeed. And this is something that I’ve had to learn myself as well, is the value of putting on your own life jacket first, like they say on a plane, “Put your own…” You can help more people-

ERIN:

Your oxygen.

CLARE:

… When your business is successful. Exactly. That’s the one, that’s the analogy that I was thinking of. But really making sure that your business is financially healthy, actually means that you can help more people.

ERIN:

Yeah, absolutely.

CLARE:

Something that we can see a lot is that these stories come into how we are with money. And it’s something that I love to talk to people about is like, “Are you holding onto too much money that it’s limiting your growth? Or conversely, are you spending too much money and not making sure that you’re protecting yourself and keeping your business safe as well?” I love these conversations because the more and more that we have these uncomfortable conversations, the more that we can identify our own blocks, “I’ve got blocks that I’m continually working on to this day,” then we can start to shift the trajectory of our business and inspire other business owners to do the same as well.

ERIN:

Yeah, for sure. I feel knowledge is empowerment, really.

CLARE:

Yeah, for sure. Well, I’m really glad that you and Ash have been doing the work, and it’s really cool to see the difference in your confidence and your clarity because that then translates into the bottom line, ultimately.

ERIN:

Yeah, totally.

CLARE:

So let’s just talk a little bit about the Profit Academy Foundations. I talk about mastering your money, but actually, inside the course, how did you find it? People tend to, “I don’t want to bloody learn about accounting, it’s a bit boring.” Share with me your experience of coming inside. Was it overwhelming? How did you find the course of the program itself?

ERIN:

Yeah. I loved it. I binged it. And I know in some of those videos you’re like, “Take your time, go through it slowly.” But I’m a bit of a binger, so I just smashed through it. I actually started it last year and then came back to it and started again because I found myself forgetting some of the terminology. But it was like a light going on, financial terminology that I had heard but didn’t really grasp and the explanation of those things and what we should be looking at and how you should be thinking about things, even down to the basics of how to use the Xero app to upload a receipt and start the reconciliation process. I’d never done that before and had just been taking a photo of the receipt, sending it to the bookkeeper, expecting it to get uploaded, and it wouldn’t always necessarily happen.

So I think that knowledge of the basics of getting that stuff right was really empowering and I think it just flowed really nicely. It laid some foundations in understanding the terminology, understanding the basics of what spreadsheets and systems to use, and then how to then take that knowledge and take those systems to then grow the business and even right to what meetings to set up on the regular so that you can be constantly coming back to this stuff. And just to keep some notes because I was like, “This information is sitting with me right now, but I’m going to get distracted and get back into creative mind and I don’t want to forget it.” So I’ve set up these meetings in our calendar and they’re so detailed with every step that we need to do, and I’m sure we’ll get faster at doing it, but I feel really confident that we’re on the right track now because this was something that we were asking for support from our account and bookkeeper for so long and they just weren’t forthcoming with it.

And we’re in the process of transitioning. I’ve actually signed a new bookkeeper as of yesterday, which is really exciting, and it felt she got what the approach was. And going into that meeting with her to see if she was the right fit with all of this knowledge behind me really helped in knowing that.

CLARE:

Oh, 100%, yeah. And something I think I’ve shared on the podcast before, but maybe not, at school, I was a straight-A student and then when I went to uni, I failed Introduction to Accounting. Now, I got an A-plus in advanced math at school and I failed Intro to Accounting and I thought, “I’m terrible at accounting.” But the reality is, obviously, I’ve now gone on, I’ve completed an undergrad, I’ve completed a post-grad with distinctions in some subjects, and I’m like, “I wasn’t bad at accounting. It’s just that people don’t explain it in an easy-to-understand way.” And this is why I’m so passionate about this work because what I see again and again is that people are like, “I don’t understand. It’s really confusing.” And I’m like, “But it’s actually not. I failed Intro to Accounting because I thought it’s all too weird and crazy and I don’t understand it.”

So for me, I’m like, “Why not just choose simple terms and just break it down into basic blocks?” And that’s what I’ve tried to do inside the course is rather than using all this really confusing terminology, use really simple terms that people can understand and connect to so that they can go, “Oh, that makes sense now,” rather than using all of the confusing terms. And the other thing that I’ve tried to do in the course, I spent six years at university studying accounting, and I tried to cut out all of the stuff that’s not really relevant and just really focus in on, “If you just know these things, this is what you need to know to be able to run your business effectively, to make sure that you’re maximizing your profit and to make sure that you’re right across your cash flow.” So I’d love to hear that feedback and hopefully, that means that I nailed it inside the course.

ERIN:

Oh, totally. And even just to be able to communicate with the team that are managing it and understand when you need to jump in and be more involved. I did communications at university and it was such a big thing when you’re talking with anyone in a slightly different industry to you. Being able to bridge that gap and understand each other is so important. And you just need the basics for that, so hugely helpful.

CLARE:

And I think what I’ve seen with you and with a lot of my students who’ve come through is that, unfortunately, they’ve realized that their finance team isn’t quite the right fit. They’re like, “Oh, they don’t even do that.” When people learn the basics, they start to realize, “Oh my gosh, there’s mistakes being made here.” Or they’re not explaining this. One of my big things that I teach inside the course is about money meetings and I teach about you should meet internally and meet with your finance team. And a lot of times, people are like, “My accountant won’t meet with me.”  You’re here actively wanting to get right across your finances and a lot of accountants say, “No, that’s not something that we offer.”

ERIN:

Yeah. Well, they charge through the nose for it when [inaudible 00:31:28]. I asked our old bookkeeper the week before last, or whenever super was due that last quarter, I was like, “It’s due tomorrow. I want to get this sorted because if we’re late with this, then it’s a whole headache.” And we were paying him to assist us with managing super, and he was like, “Oh no, I’ve got other urgent stuff. I’ll do it next week.” And I was like, “Well, it’s due tomorrow, so that’s not helpful. Isn’t this part of your job to assist with this?” So yeah, it’s amazing how it’s like pulling teeth sometimes.

CLARE:

Yeah. Well, there’s something my last accountant said to me because I said to him, “Do all your clients meet with you?” And he said, “Only the successful ones.” I love that saying. And I said, “How many is that?” And he’s like, “Oh, there’s only three people who’ve requested meetings.” Out of his whole client base. But people are like, “I don’t even know what to talk to with my accountant.” And again, this is something inside Foundations, I’m like, “Here’s the things that you need to cover. Make sure that you know exactly how much of this you need to have put aside. Ask them this question. Run through these reports.” And I actually gave an agenda of what to do so that you’re not just sitting there like, “Hi.” You actually really understand-

ERIN:

Hoping they know what to do.

CLARE:

… what you want to do. Exactly.

ERIN:

I’ve been in the camp of asking for the meeting and having that question ignored.

CLARE:

And look, as someone who comes from an accounting background, a lot of people were excellent in spreadsheets and with numbers, perhaps not as great at communication as someone in the digital marketing space. But that’s okay, everyone’s got their skillset, right? Fabulous. Is there anything more that you wanted to share about coming through the course? If someone’s listening to this episode and wondering if now’s the right time if they should jump in, anything else that you wanted to share with them?

I think if you’re wanting to get better at understanding the numbers at even just a high level so that you can talk with your accountant and your bookkeeper, or you’re wanting systems for managing cash flow and budgets so that you feel more confident. I used to be the type of person when I was younger that was afraid to look at my bank account. I was quite avoidant with money. My money story in general was like that. And I’ve done a lot of work to change it. And what I’ve found has helped the most is understanding it and being really plugged into it. And that has just played out again in the last year with just some things in the business. And getting a hold of it and feeling on top of it has just made a world of difference.

I found out last week about the super situation and that we were a little bit late. It was just super that we owed ourselves because me and Ash were on payroll and we hadn’t paid our own super and that we were going to have late fees and stuff as a result of that. So it wasn’t a big deal, but I didn’t know about this for seven months. And if I’d been more on top of it, it wouldn’t have been a problem. We might have made different decisions in the business at the time. We’ve gotten on top of it now and it’s fine. And I’m glad to have learned that lesson at this stage in our business before we grow to that million-dollar level and have the huge bill around the neck. So it was a really good lesson to have and picking that up was literally a result of learning how to read balance sheets in your course.

It made me realize that was even the case. The accountant and the bookkeeper weren’t going to tell me and still haven’t taken any accountability in their part in that. So learning how to read balance sheets and how to pull reports and what those numbers mean and how to spot things that maybe should be looked at was invaluable.

CLARE:

Oh, well that’s wonderful to hear. And I’m so glad that you’ve done this work. And maybe this course isn’t the right fit for you, but I just urge the listeners, please make sure that you go and learn how to understand your finances properly because I hear this story so many times where unfortunately, your accountant or whoever hasn’t shared. So I really encourage you to do this work to learn to get right across your finances because it’ll change your confidence. And the other thing, of course, is that it changes your bottom line. One of the modules actually inside the course is that I’m like, “If things aren’t where you want it to be, here’s some things that you can go and do instead because sometimes I find people learn and then they’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is not great.”

So I did a whole module which is like, “Okay, if things aren’t where you want it to be, here’s what you can do. Here’s how you turn it around.” And that is the confidence and power that you’ve got. You go, “Oh, okay, cool. I know that I need to do some things differently. What are some levers that we can pull?” Wonderful. Well, thank you so, so much for coming on and having this chat today. It’s been wonderful working with you and witnessing your growth in this space. And I know that your business is just going to go on to bigger and bigger and bigger things. If people are listening and they do want help in the event ticketing space with selling out their events, what’s the best way that they can get in touch with you and Ash?

ERIN:

Yeah. So we have a form on our website that they can go to. So that’s socialseason.com.au or our Instagram handle is socialseasonau, and they can just DM us there and we can have a chat.

CLARE:

Amazing. Well, I’m going to pop the links for Social Season in the show notes for today’s episode if you want to reach out and connect. And the girls share heaps of amazing info on their social media, and make sure you go and give them a follow over there as well. Erin, thanks so much for joining today. It’s been lovely chatting to you again.

ERIN:

Thanks for having me, Clare.

Lori’s Foundations Journey

if you wouldn’t mind sharing why you decided to come and join the course.

LORI:

So I had seen that you were running a three-day free insight into money leaks and things like that. And that seemed really fascinating to me because even though I run two businesses, the area that I just never feel across is the money, which is crazy because one of the most important areas to be across when you run a business is your money. And so I jumped into those free workshops that you ran and so much of the content resonated with me. And I don’t think I realised until doing those three courses or those three free workshops that I was afraid of money. I don’t think I knew that I had that mindset that I was fearful of money and fearful of knowing the numbers of my business. And when that came into my awareness, when I became aware of that fact, I realised that I needed to jump into the Profit Academy because it’s so vital to understand your money.

And I also think my thought process was that if I joined the Profit Academy and I understood my money better, I’d be less scared of it and of being able to read all of those numbers. And then I would probably feel way more empowered to make decisions in my business that didn’t focus around scarcity, but instead focused around abundance.

CLARE:

And look, this is something that I hear again and again. I would say it’s such an area of business that people aren’t educated about. I come from an accounting background and as I’ve shared openly, and of course sometimes I feel a little bit overwhelmed with it. I spent six years studying accounting so I can imagine how a lot of people of just shy away from this part of their business. And another thing that I see is that a lot of business owners really give away their power in this space to other people. And I know that people like, “Well, I’ve got an accountant.” But firstly, how do you know if they’re not making mistakes, if they’re giving you the correct information? And secondly, unfortunately what I hear a lot is that people’s accountants aren’t giving them all the information that they need.

And I’ve had many clients who were like, “I thought my accountant would tell me about that. And I didn’t know that I’d have a massive tax debt.” And I said, “Well, were you asking them the question?” “No, I didn’t know I needed to.” And that’s sort of what I created this course. It wasn’t to replace your accountant per se, it was just to put business owners in the driver’s seat and say, “Hey, here’s the basics of everything you need to know.” And at the end of the day, this is your money. This is your hard earned money. And I’m glad that the money leaks course resonated with you, the mini training that we did. So you made that leap. When you were considering jumping into the course… So you obviously were doing the three-day challenge.

When you were considering jumping into the course, did you have any reservations or hesitations? What was going through your mind at the time?

LORI:

I think you always have a reservation when joining a course, particularly with someone you’ve never done a course with before, because you’re just not a hundred percent sure if the value’s going to be there. And I do a lot of courses and I finish all of the courses that I do because I look at it like if I’m paying for this course, then I’m going to make sure that I show up so that I get the most out of that, that particular course. My reservations in the beginning, were probably more around, “Is this going to be suitable to me and is it going to relate back to both of my businesses,” which 100% it did. So I have a service based business, but I also have a product based business. And I loved how transferable all of the course knowledge was across both of those businesses.

So my reservations really, you’ve got to take that leap of faith sometimes and you’ve just got to trust in where you’re at and how you feel. And I always take a moment to say, “Okay, intuitively, does this feel like a yes or does this feel like a no?” And this course felt like a yes to me, and so I had to jump in.

CLARE:

Yeah, I love that there’s this theory about decision making and it is that there’s the logical side of your brain and the emotional side of your brain. And when you’re making decisions, it has to feel good in both. So for example, if you are looking at buying a new car and you go, “Okay, yes, it ticks the box, it’s got that many suits,” and then you get in the car and you’re like, “Ugh, feels meh.” And then on the flip side, if you get in a car and you’re like, “God, this is so hot,” but you’re like, “It’s a two seated car and I’ve got two children that won’t fit in this car.” You’re like, “Well,” so I think that we’re making decisions about any big investment. I think it’s important that you check in on both. I love checking in on your intuition, but obviously there’s also that logical side of your brain.

And one of the things that I taught in the course as well is that quick ROI calculator, which is like, “If I’m going to invest a couple of thousand dollars in something, is this going to deliver that money back to me?” So yeah, I love that you share that you feel that fear because I think sometimes people think that the fear goes away. And at the moment, I’m about to launch my book into the world next year, and I know that when I’m looking at all of the options around doing a book tour and all of that, I said to my husband, I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” I’m like, “It’s so much money.” And he turned around with a big grin and he said to me, “It’s always scary investing, isn’t it?” And it was a really great reminder that it doesn’t go away. And maybe that the numbers change, but the fear’s always there. So thank you for sharing that.

LORI:

Yeah, thank you. I think because you grew up, I remember listening to one of your podcasts where you didn’t grow up with a lot of money. I grew up with a mindset that in order to make money, you have to work extremely hard, you have to be the best, you have to work much harder than everybody else. And I think your experience as a child and how your parents viewed money and how money was handled in your household has a really big impact on the decisions that you make later on in life. And if you can recognise that, that might help also to alleviate those fears that you have because you can say, “Well actually is that my fear or is that somebody… is that something that was taught to me around money?”

CLARE:

Yes. I love that. It’s so true, isn’t it? All these… I mean I know that’s delving right into the money mindset side, but it’s very true, isn’t it? The things that we are bought up being told again and again, I know for me it was wasting money was the worst thing in the world. I remember being forced to eat food that I didn’t want because we couldn’t waste anything. And it’s interesting how that sort of slides into your life at every different chapter. I love that you shared that.

Awesome. So let’s talk about after you’ve jumped in. So, when you first started to dive into the Profit Academy Foundations and started to learn, because module one is all about… it’s about the accounting basics and I know that there’s a lot in that first module.

How were you sort of feeling when you started to dive in and learn a little bit more about the fundamentals of accounting and business finance

LORI:

I have a phenomenal accountant and I’ve spent a lot of time with my accountant understanding the software that I use for our construction business and also trying to get across the things that are my responsibility. Like you said before, your accountant has a certain responsibility, but you actually are in the driver’s seat 100%. Your accountant is someone who assists you. Your business is your business and it should be your focal point and your money is most likely one of the reasons why you went into business. You wanted to serve a community to make money. And when I jumped into… And I’ve also done a business degree, so I did do Accounting 101. What I loved is that I did have a basic understanding of accounting, but it’s really helpful to go over everything again and to have that refresher. And there was so much in that first module, that module really frightened me, I must be honest.

From the beginning, it was so big and I was thinking, “Oh my god, this is so much. But it was perfect. It was the perfect first module because without that knowledge and without that information, you can’t really move on to the other six modules. And I loved it. I really loved it. It helped solidify a lot of what I already knew and it reminded me of the importance of a lot of things and helped me pull reports from the accounting software that I would never have pulled before and could read them and could understand them. And then was so equipped to understand our financial position. And that particular, that module one led me to believe straight off the bat that I had made the right decision in jumping in.

CLARE:

Yeah, I remember when I was creating it that I said multiple times at the start of the training, I’m like, “This modules a biggie.” It’s a biggie, but you have to know this stuff. And one of the things that I’ve really tried to do inside the course was to make it really simple as well because what I found when I was studying accounting, I didn’t do any accounting in high school. I just studied it straight at university and I found that the lecturers were using such big and complex terms and I was sitting there thinking, “Oh my gosh.” And it was only years later when it all sort of clicked together that I was like, “Why didn’t they make that easier?” And so what I really tried to do in that module was break it down as simply as possible, put it into plain English terms so that while there’s a lot in there, hopefully it’s really easy to understand and you don’t feel like you’re getting bombarded with all these accounting gobbly goop terms.

LORI:

No, that was really good because even though there was a lot of content, I certainly didn’t feel overwhelmed.

CLARE:

And that was me trying to take what I’ve learned in six years of accounting and compress it into… trying to remove all of the things that you probably don’t need as a small business owner and just really focus in on, “Here’s the key terminology, metrics, things that you need to know to make the rest of the program make sense.” So, that was your first experience. You were probably a bit like, “Whoa, this is a lot,” but hopefully you weren’t feeling too warmed to go, “Okay, cool. I’m feeling a bit more empowered around all of this.”

LORI:

And the work workbook helps as well. Having that you’ve got a workbook that you can write stuff in as well. And that was really in each of the modules and that was really helpful.

CLARE:

Yeah. And then moving through the rest of the program… Sorry, the rest of the course is isn’t quite as intense. It’s a lot more practical and focused on the business. What were some of the key takeaways that you had going through the rest of the modules?

LORI:

So I’ve done a household budget, but I’ve never done a budget for either of the businesses. That was a huge eye-opening moment for me and truly terrifying because I was thinking, “Oh my goodness, I’m going to put in big numbers here and we’re never going to hit them.” Now I want to just say straight away that we are 17th of November and we are midway through the month of November, and I’ve already blown through both of the targets that I set for November, which is crazy.

CLARE:

Wow.

LORI:

It goes to show one of two things. First and foremost, I budgeted too low and I budgeted too low because I didn’t know my numbers. And so when I redo the budget again, I’m going to be so empowered because I am so across the numbers now. I know, “Hey, we can do way more than this. We can really strive for bigger goals.” The other key takeaway that I had was that my husband and I are in a way stronger financial position than I realised. And whether or not this is because I’m across the numbers now and I can see the money that’s coming in, I can see the money that’s going out and I understand it better. I just feel like we actually are making more money. So I don’t know if that’s true because I wasn’t necessarily across the numbers as well as I was before.

But I have no concerns now about making purchases or investing in either of the businesses. I feel so much more relaxed around even household purchases because I know where our money is, I know what money’s coming in. The cash flow forecast was also incredible. Every single Monday, I sit down and I chat to my husband about what we’ve got coming in and I’m so across all of the client work as well, much more than I have ever been before. And that’s been a wonderful takeaway from the course because that was really why I joined. I was worried that our financial position wasn’t as strong as it actually is and you’ve given me peace of mind.

CLARE:

So this is interesting because I find that when people dive into their money, either one of two things happen. And this actually happens quite a lot of the time. I’d say about half of the people, they’re like, “Oh, it’s actually not as bad as I thought.” And sometimes people are, “I’m actually kicking ass here.” So, that’s definitely a really positive thing that can happen. The flip side of that, sometimes people dive in and they’re like, “Whoa, this is not great.” And the thing that I remind people that do sort of fall into that bucket is I’m like, “Well, it was not great whether you knew it or not. And at least now, rather than ending up in a place where you have a massive tax debt or you can’t afford to pay your bills, at least now you know what’s going on and you can start to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to making positive steps moving forward.”

So I’m really glad that you had that experience. And the thing that I often find too is that when people are empowered with that knowledge, you will be able to grow your business faster. Because when you say, “Let’s hire the new team member, do the thing,” you actually know, “I’ve got the money there to do that.” Whereas, what I see sometimes is that people hold themselves back because they’re freaking out. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t even know if I can afford this thing.” And so they aren’t making those investments. So hopefully having that knowledge, you now can actually start to grow the businesses a lot faster within ten because you say, “Hey, we can actually afford to do the thing that you are weighing up.” So, that’s really cool.

The second thing that you touched on there was the cash flow forecast. So this is something… It doesn’t sound sexy. When you talk about a cashflow forecast, people like, “Sounds like a spreadsheet.” It is a spreadsheet, let’s be honest. But the thing that you said there is that… maybe talk a little bit about what it’s meant to you and why you enjoy doing the cash flow forecast process 

LORI:

Because then I’m just across the money that’s coming into the business and I’m setting expectations every single week, at the very beginning of the week on what we’ve got coming in and what we’ve got going out. And just being able to see that in a really simplistic Excel spreadsheet provides me with so much empowerment in knowing what we’ve got coming up. And the cash flow forecast, you do it every single week, but you’ve also, you’re always a few weeks ahead as well. And that is how I would like to run my business. I want to know three to four weeks ahead what we’ve got coming in, what we’ve got going out so that I can be prepared. So if I need to move money around or if I need to be filling up the tax savings more, and it’s not just even in the businesses, I’m now doing it in the household budget as well.

So it transfers across into your personal life, which is so important for your peace of mind. If you know what money you’ve got coming in and you know what money you’ve got going out, you can organise your entire life with so much more knowledge and power. And when you run a small business, usually your income is from your business. When you work for somebody else, you go, “Well, I know I’m going to get paid X amount of dollars every single week.” But when you’re running a small business, every week may not be the exact same dollar amount that you’ve got coming in. So you need to be across that. And also, one of the things that you said in the course was that if you look at your week ahead and you go, “Wow, I’ve actually got a lot of expenses and I don’t actually have a lot of income coming in, what can I do to change that now?”

No point waiting till the end of the month and going, “Wow, I had a really bad month. I didn’t make as much money as I thought.” You can make that empowered decision at the very beginning of every single week. “I need to bring a new client on board. I need to… For me, maybe I need to run another class or I need to find another private client and say to my husband, ‘What quotes do we have coming up? Who can I move into invoice stage?’” Without that visual every single Monday, I wouldn’t be doing that.

CLARE:

Yeah. And that’s exactly what this process is all about. It’s exact same process that I used to use when I worked in big corporate firms. And I think that people think, “When I get to a certain stage, I won’t have to worry about this.” But something that I remind people, businesses go up and down. The economy grows up and down and cashflow is one of the biggest things that can destroy a business, a lack of cash flow. And even if you’ve got a really profitable business, and this is what a lot of people don’t understand is profit is different to cash flow. Cash flow, because you can have a business that made… I’ll use my husband’s business for example. So he’s a recruiter and he can make a sale, and what happens is that he won’t get that money straight away. So even though it shows up as a profit in a particular month, what happens with recruitment is that someone has to give their notice and then they have to start and then he won’t get paid until potentially the end of that month.

So sometimes it’s two months later before he gets that money. And this is what cash flow is, it’s different to profit. It’s actually, “Do I have enough money in my bank account to pay my bills?” So I love that you are using that and please continue to stick with it. I have a client of mine that I worked with years and years ago and she told me, she goes, “To this day, I still use that process.” And she said, “It’s so, so helpful because I always know what’s coming in, what’s going out.” And just being able to make those decisions, being able to say, “Hey, maybe I need to push that out.” I know I’ve had examples in my own business where I’ve said, “I’m going to have to push that photo shoot out,” or “I’m going to have to delay that project.” And it actually feels great being able to do that rather than getting somewhere being like, “How the hell do I pay that invoice?”

LORI:

Well, that’s it. And you’re proactive.

CLARE:

Yeah, yeah.

LORI:

You’ve always got eyes on your business. And I think the other thing as well is I probably wasn’t really aware that I was doing this, but I think I was coming to every new client coming into my yoga business or every new private client with this little bit of fear like, “Oh, I really want to serve this person well. I hope they like me, and the additional income would be amazing as well.” But there was always this sort of concern about the money side lingering in the background where when I’m serving a client and I imagine that you are the same, you really want your full attention to be on the experience that that client is having with you. And now that I have the cash flow forecast, I worry about my money Monday morning for 30 minutes and I do not think about it again.

CLARE:

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And you can just be present and be serving and yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. I know one of the things that we spoke about in the course as well was about talking about different payment methods and how to make sure that you’re not ending up in a situation where people aren’t paying you because that’s something that was very real that happens in business. We also sort of started to dive a little bit into mindset because I know that yourself and a couple of other people spoke about, “Well, people won’t want to do that,” or, “How do I have that conversation without making someone be like, ‘I don’t want to pay in advance.’” So yeah, it’s really cool to be looking at your numbers and be able to not have to stress about it when you’re there with your clients.

LORI:

And you do feel, I think, when you’re not across your money, you do feel awkward about having those money conversations because you don’t want the other person to think that you’re really scrambling for cash or, which is not at all the case. One of my clients would always pay me in arrears, and you encouraged me to get that payment in advance. And when I spoke to the client about that, I said, “Look, I’m now going to be charging in advance for these yoga classes that I’m teaching.” There was no upset from the client, he wasn’t disgruntled by that comment. He was like, “Yeah, well we pay everybody else in advance.” I was like, “Oh my goodness. Oh, this is unbelievable.” And once you’re across your money and you don’t have the fear, you just don’t feel awkward about talking about money anymore either. You sort of go, “Well, I am providing a service and it’s a fantastic service and these are my payment terms.”

CLARE:

Yeah, exactly. I think the more and more that you do this and that you talk about money and that you feel in the driver’s seat and you can go, “Wow, okay, this is a way that I can do things,” then yeah, it gets easier with time.

LORI:

It definitely does. And doing the course the way that we did it, week on week on week, you’re learning a new skill set every single week and you’re just feeling more and more in the driver’s seat.

CLARE:

Oh, well I’m pleased to hear. That’s exactly what we were aiming for. The last bit of the Profit Academy Foundations that we delved into, and I had to put this module in there because it’s my favorite part of business, which is helping people make more money. And I armed denied about, “Does this belong in this course or not?” But the program’s called the Profit Academy, and I wanted to close the course out with the module. “Okay, you’ve done all the work, you get the finances, here’s how you actually make more money.” And one of the bonuses that I have is 50 revenue boosters. It’s 50 ideas for how you can make more money in your business. I’d love for you to share, did you have any a-has in the last module in module seven about how to actually make more profit or drive more revenue in your business?

LORI:

I loved that revenue booster and I’m actually using that to help guide my 2023 goals.

CLARE:

Oh yay.

LORI:

Yeah. I really loved that. I enjoyed… Because we did the course closer to the end of the year, I’m starting to slow down both of the businesses. But it’s giving me the opportunity to really dive into that handout and that module and look into 2023 and how we can start to boost the revenue for both of the businesses. Because the content that’s provided in the course is there’s so much and every week you’re doing this, and then you’re doing the next thing and you’re building on it. It’s fantastic. And you want to do it that way because you’re getting across your numbers. Once you’re across your numbers and you’re starting to implement all of the things that you need to do on a weekly basis and on a monthly basis, once you’ve got all that down, you can start to look into, “Right, how do I increase that revenue?”

And just as I was saying before with the cash flow forecast, if I was looking at the cash flow forecasting going, “Oh my goodness, we really need a boost of income.” Which for us right now we don’t, which is amazing. What a fantastic position to be in. But I wouldn’t have known that without doing the course so I’m so grateful. But you can grab that, the 50 revenue and go, “Right, which one of these am I going to do this week and see if it works for me?” And that’s definitely something I’m going to be doing in 2023 because I want to start to build the yoga business up a little bit more, but in ways that feel more authentic to me. I love doing the workshops. I love being hired by companies to come in and talk to families or to employees about yoga and mindfulness. I love the speaking engagements. I don’t necessarily want to run more weekly classes.

And so there was just so many tips in that revenue booster that tie into increasing your revenue in a way that feels authentic and right for you and your business. There was so many great handouts in this course. So many. It really was, there was so much value. I’m very grateful that I did it. And I would definitely recommend anybody else who is fearful about their money to jump on board because you will come out the other end fit with a completely different mindset.

CLARE:

Oh, well, I’m so, so pleased. This was exactly my intent when I created it. I wanted to empower business owners. And I also wanted, not just that you become great with your numbers and your money, but that you could go, “I’m in the driver’s seat. I can make a ton more money.” And I know even by the end of the program, we had people inside saying, “I’ve added a couple of thousand dollars even just in the last couple of weeks.” Someone spoke about how they’ve added $50,000 into their business and through coming up with new ways to add more revenue. And that just excites me so, so much.

I wanted to say a massive, massive thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience inside. If anyone is loving your vibe and would like to connect, what’s the best way that they can connect with you?

LORI:

So you can jump onto my website, www.samanawellbeing.com.au. I teach weekly yoga classes in North Brisbane. And my Instagram handle is @lifewithlori_ so I would love to hear from anybody, and if anybody is interested in having someone come into their organisation and talk about mindfulness and yoga and how to embrace life’s ups and downs, please get in contact with me.