4 habits to eliminate financial anxiety

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

 Do your business finances give you anxiety? Does it just give you the heebie jeebies to think about sitting down and looking at your money? If so, make sure you stick around because in today’s episode of the podcast, I’m going to be sharing with you four financial habits that will transform the way that you think about your money.

Before I get started on today’s episode, I just wanted to share with you that doors are now open to my ultimate business finance course, the Profit Academy Foundations. Foundations is your step by step framework to get started to truly understand your business finances so that you understand what is going on, and more importantly, that you have a plan on how to grow your business profit, if things aren’t quite looking at the way you want them to be. This isn’t just about managing your money. It’s about how to actually make more of it. Inside the Profit Academy Foundations, you will learn how to get across your finances using easy, simple to follow processes in as little as 15 minutes a week.

Being a live round, you’ll also get weekly live Q and a calls with me to ask any of those hairy questions that you have. And there’s also a ton of other bonuses being included, given that it is a live round. So if you do want to find out more, all the deets are in the link in the show notes for today’s episode.

So let’s start by having a think about what your current habits are with money. When you step back and think about how you behave around your business finances, what are the key themes that comes out? Are you someone that loves to spend your money? The second it hits your account? Are you someone who has a habit where you put aside your tax and you save for the future? Just take a moment and really reflect on what your current habits are when it comes to money.

What we’re going to be diving into today is some new habits that you can create that will help transform your relationship with your business finances. It’s going to make things easier for you. And when it comes to managing your money, I think ease something that everyone is looking for.

So the first money habit or money practice that I recommend is that you are super clear about your product and pricing offer, and that it is something that you regularly revisit.

If your finances aren’t quite looking the way that you want them to be taking a step back and really having a bird’s eye view of what your product mix is and your pricing can be a really powerful way to transform the outcomes that you are achieving. Ultimately, as small business owners, you have an offer or perhaps a range of offers that you put forward to potential clients for them to either say, yes, that’s the right fit for me or no, it’s not. And a lot of times my clients and my students come to me because they are struggling to create the profit outcomes that they desire. One of the first things that I always do is have a look at the product mix and the pricing. It might be helpful to think about tearing the pricing or the levels of offers that you have. You might want to have a, an entry level price point, which is the base offer that you have. And then perhaps you might want to have something that is a VIP or a premium or a higher price point offering. You might even want to have multiple tiers when it comes to your product mix and your product pricing, depending on the amount of support or inclusions that they get.

When I think about my own business, I have a product at a very low price point, which is my book. And that is my entry level price point. If money is tight, if you’re not in a space to invest, you can, for a very small amount of money, buy my book, which is a great first step in the process you know, doing this work on your profit.

Then I have my programs, my courses. And as I mentioned earlier, doors to one of my courses, the Profit Academy foundations is open right now. And that’s sort of at that next tier price point. And then I have my higher price point offerings, for example, my VIP days, my retreats, one on one coaching with me.

So you can see I’ve got a bit of a tiered product offering with things at different price points. Now, this may or may not be the right strategy for you, but as a first point of call, it just might be taking some time to reflect on what am I selling? Is there different levels of offerings that I do have? Do I need to create something at a higher price point? Or maybe even a lower price point.

At the end of the day, money is just an energetic exchange. So if people aren’t buying at the rate that you want them to be, it might be worth reflecting on the reasons why? Are my prices, not at the right price point? Are they too low is another thing that I see quite a bit that business owners are undercharging. They are working their butts off and wondering why they are struggling to get ahead. So take a moment and have a look at your product and pricing mix.

The next habit that you want to get into is forecasting your cash flow every week. Your cash flow is different to your profit because your cash flow is about the money that is coming into your account and flowing out of your account. And one of the things about a cashflow forecast is that it’s also looking at the timing of this.

So I do a cashflow meeting every single week, and inside that meeting we are looking at the timings of the inflows and outflows of cash and then making decisions about how to tweak things inside the business. So for example, if it’s looking like cash is going to be getting tight, I can push back a cash outflow or maybe even eliminate a cash outflow. Or alternatively, I can look at other levers that I can be pulling to bring more revenue in. Do I need to put a new offer out there? Do I need to chase up some clients who’ve reached out to me about working together? So your cash flow forecast is one of the most powerful tools you have for eliminating your financial anxiety. Because it’s your plan, you know what is coming in and going out and when, and if you don’t like the look of what’s happening, you can make decisions to change it.

A lot of our anxiety is simply around the fear of the unknown. And when you have a lot more of a clearer view, You’ll feel a lot more empowered because you can actually make decisions rather than waiting until you’re behind the eight ball and you got to pay a bill and you just don’t have the money in the bank account. So your cashflow meetings will be a game changer for you in terms of your relationship with your business finances.

Now, this next one is going to feel a little bit counter intuitive, but bear it with me, it is that I want you to meet every single month with your accountant. Now, I know what you’re going to say, because I’ve heard this plenty of times over the years, but a lot of people think that their accountant actually causes them anxiety. And that might very well be the case. I just want to say that before I go any further here, sometimes you might have an accountant who perhaps isn’t as growth minded as you are as an entrepreneur. Maybe every time you have a meeting with them, it makes you feel crap, or maybe you just don’t enjoy the time that you spend together. If so, it might be worth reflecting, are they the right fit to keep supporting you in this role? Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren’t. But the purpose of your monthly meetings with your accountant aren’t to stress you out. It’s actually to help you reduce your stress, even though the conversations themselves might be a little bit uncomfortable.

So what would be stressful about meeting with your accountant? A lot of times having a look at things we don’t want to see can be a little bit uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. And I know that particularly if financial literacy isn’t a strong point for you, if every time you meet your accountant, they are saying, Hey, you owe this money in tax, or you haven’t paid this. It can feel quite stressful, but here’s why I really want you to have these regular catch ups with your accountant. Because knowledge is power. And the more that you understand about what’s going on with your numbers, the more empowered you can be to be proactive, to actually make decisions, to improve your business financial position. The more that you meet with your accountant, the more you are going to learn about the way that money works. So spending time with them, even if it does feel a little bit uncomfortable is actually helping you to flex that muscle in the space of your financial mindset. So lock in those monthly meetings with your accountants.

And I’m just going to take a moment to do a little plug, but inside my course, the Profit Academy foundations, I actually really go into detail about what to cover in the meetings with your accountant, about what numbers and metrics you should be looking at. Why you want to be having these meetings and how you can be driving a really positive relationship with your accountants so that you are able to be really empowered in the space of your money.

Alrighty. The last money habit that will help you to get rid of that fangxiety or financial anxiety is to structure your finances to avoid surprises.

So one of the things that I love to teach is to put your money aside as you earn it. And what this means is that you won’t end up with what I call tax surprise or an unexpected tax bill. So what this means is having a separate account for any of the liabilities or things that you are going to have to pay in the future. What we don’t want to do is wait until the bill has come in and we don’t have the money put aside. There’s a saying, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. There are two things for certain in life, death and taxes. So as much as we’d like to think that we get to keep all of the money that we earn, the government takes a percentage of it to help provide facilities that support both us and other people. And we need to be aware that we’re going to have to pay taxes, particularly as our business grows past a certain stage. So what I suggest the way that you can avoid this bill coming up out of nowhere, causing you a ton of stress is that as, as you actually earn the money, you put the money aside. It goes into a separate account. And then when the tax bill comes up, you don’t have to freak out cause you’re like, great I’ve already got the money put aside over there.

I also recommend that you put aside any other monies or obligations that you’re going to have. So for example, here in Australia, we have a superannuation, which is basically a fund or money that you put aside for your retirement. It is a legal obligation to do so because the government wants to make sure that we are setting ourselves up for the future. So again, when the bill comes due, you have the money there, it’s put aside. There may be different taxes or obligations in your country. So really, again, this is one of the big benefits or reasons you want to be regularly meeting with your accountant so that, you know, firstly, what these obligations are, how much they are and making sure that you are providing correctly for them. And I reckon the best way to do this is through having a separate account. So it’s out of sight, out of mind, and you know that it is there for when the time comes, when it is due.

So there you have it, four financial habits that will help reduce your money anxiety.

If listening to this episode, you were thinking, Oh my goodness, Clare, I need some help in this space. Well, you are in luck because right now doors open for a live round of my course, the Profit Academy Foundations. Being a live round, it means there are also live calls as well as a ton of bonuses that aren’t normally available. By the end, you’ll have mastered the basics of business finances without any yawn inducing accounting lectures. After all, I call myself a cool accountant. You will also learn how to truly understand your business finances. So, you know, where all your hard earned dollars are so that you can grow your bank account. You will learn the secret hack to stay right across your money in as little as 15 minutes a week. So you can grow your cash position. You’ll also learn about building your dream boat finance team. So if, when I mentioned earlier about meeting with your accountant, it made you cringe, maybe you need to have a think about getting the right people in your finance team. And inside the program actually go through and show you how to find them. And last, but definitely not least, you will also build your customized growth strategy.

So this course, isn’t just like, let’s learn about numbers. It’s actually learning about how to improve your cash position and how to improve your business profitability. Doors for the live round are only open for a limited time so if you are interested in becoming a money master, please go and click on that link in the show notes and you can find out more.

Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the podcast. Please let me know what you thought of this episode. You can send me a DM, maybe you can share this episode on your Instagram account and let me know what you thought.

From the bottom of my heart, I just want to say a big thank you for tuning in and listening. And I can’t wait to chat to you again next week.

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