The money blind spots you don’t even know you have

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

 We all have blind spots when it comes to our money. Yep. Even me. And today I’m gonna share why mentorship is so powerful because you are probably leaving money, lots of money, on the table because you can’t even see your own stuff. This is gonna be a good one. All right, let’s go.

 Today I’m gonna talk about the things that keep brilliant, talented, hardworking, business owners stuck. And you might not even know this is happening. These are the blind spots I see all the time as a business coach, and I’m gonna talk about how you can navigate through these challenges and move towards that seven figure mark with clarity and confidence. You’re new around here, a big warm hello. It’s so wonderful to have you here listening to the podcast. My name is Clare Wood and I’m a business profit coach, a CPA, or a qualified accountant. I am the author of the bestselling book, Intentional Profit. You can grab a copy of that book via a link in the show notes if you haven’t read it already.

And I have worked with hundreds of business owners scaling their businesses, some beyond the million dollar mark. If you aren’t sure what to expect on this podcast, I’m a sharp shooter who offers practical BS free strategies to help you make more profit in your business. So I’m really glad that you are here. Alright, I wanna start with what exactly do I mean by blind spots?

So a blind spot. I was explaining this to my kids in the car the other day, actually. A blind spot is that spot that you can’t see. So when you are driving, I’m sure you were taught this, when you are learning how to drive, you’ve got your mirrors, your rear view mirror, you’ve got your side mirror, but there’s a little spot right towards the back left hand side, which is between the two mirrors.

You literally cannot see it unless you physically turn your head to the side and check there. We nearly sideswiped a car the other day, but I did check my blind spot and then saw the car and then quickly swerve back, and I had to explain to my kids what a blind spot is. So in your business, blind spots are exactly that.

They are the things that you can’t see, you don’t realize you are doing something wrong. It’s not something that you are even aware that you’re doing. It’s not something you’re aware is slowing you down. Let me just give you one little example. You might have something on your website that you look at and you go, “yeah, that looks fine to me.”

And then I come in with fresh eyes and say, “did you realize that the way that’s worded makes it sound like you are not taking on any new clients right now?” And you didn’t even realize that the same piece of copy could be perceived that way. So there could be a ton of different ways that you are accidentally creating chaos for yourself in business or limiting your growth potential.

Now, the reason why blind spots are dangerous. There are issues we are aware of in our business that we just haven’t fixed yet. So you might go, “yes, I know I need to tackle that problem, but I just don’t have the bandwidth right now.” But hey, at least you know it’s a problem. With blind spots, you don’t even know that it’s there.

You aren’t even aware because you haven’t done that moment where you turn and actually check the blind spot. And these blind spots might be wasting your time, your money, your energy. They might be preventing your strategic growth because you are making decisions with incomplete information. Or you might be confusing your potential customers.

Your messaging might not be clear and you don’t even realize it. So let’s talk about the four most common blind spots that I see as a coach. So the first one I would say is not having a clear growth strategy. And this can happen to anyone at any stage of business. You’re ticking along, you are growing, and then you realize I don’t actually have a strategy for how I’m going to get to the next level.

For example, you might sell one-to-one you know, design advice services and you’re growing, you’re getting busy, but you realize there’s gonna come a point in time where you run out of hours in your day and you can’t physically take on any more work. So you might not actually have a strategy for scaling. And similar, but different. You might not have a, maybe you do have a strategy for growing when it comes to sales, but you haven’t invested energy into how you’re going to grow profitably. When we talk about growth, a lot of people tend to think of sales growth.

“Get to the million dollar mark.” “Get to the six figure mark.” But here’s the thing, your sales can be growing and you might be finding that you don’t have any more extra profit left over. And I can see this quite a lot because a lot of times when businesses speed up. The investments are speeding up. You are hiring new team members. You are investing in consultants and systems and mentorship, and suddenly all of that extra sales is flying out a door as fast as it’s coming in. So when you are creating your growth strategy, make sure it’s an intentional profit growth strategy.

So you’re growing with profit, not just with sales. Another big blind spot that I see and that I’ve also been guilty of is underestimating capacity constraints. Now, I know I’ve said this on the podcast before, but they estimate 80% of female entrepreneurs have ADHD, and what this can mean is that you find you struggle with focus.

You might get distracted very easily. You might get excited by the bright, new, shiny things and you just wanna take it all on. I know that I am very guilty of this. I’m like, I should start a magazine. I really get excited by the new shiny thing, and sometimes we take on these additional things and we really underestimate how much actual capacity we have to take on more and more and more.

And then what this can lead to is overwhelm, burnout, all of those sensations that you may have experienced as a business owner, stress, anxiety. And of course, the one of the ways to tackle this constraint issue is systems. But again, the process of implementing systems, I know I’m doing it right now in and of itself is also time consuming, costs money.

It can be another thing that you are adding to your plate. So a second thing that may be affecting your capacity, your ability to grow, is that you are underestimating your capacity constraints. All right, let’s dive into the third one. The third one is that you aren’t operating as a CEO. And this is something that I mentor my clients through quite a lot.

What happens when you get started in business is you’ve got your big dreams, you’ve got your passion, you wanna make a difference, and then suddenly this thing starts to grow and all new responsibilities are coming your way.

But as you step from a sole trader mindset into leading a team, or growing the business, you need to change the way that you think and operate. You need to start operating as the CEO. And this is a big blind spot that a lot of business owners have. They forget to operate as the CEO, and here’s some ways that this can show up.

Maybe you avoid having difficult conversations. You know that your clients are probably due for a price increase, but you think, “oh, I can’t deal with that right now. I’ll just park it.” Maybe avoid difficult conversations with clients. Difficult conversations. “Hey, you owe me money.” Maybe you avoid difficult conversations with team or with contractors.

You’re not stepping into that CEO role. And again, this is a big, big blind spot that affects a lot of business owners. And another money blind spot that you might not have, is that you simply aren’t investing the level of time and/or energy to elevate the business into the next level. Now, I’m not at all condoning working all the crazy hours stressing yourself out, but sometimes what can happen when we do have the flexibility as business owners is that the pendulum could swing a little bit too far the other way.

We are doing all of the things except for actually focusing on the business and the business growth. I know I recently had a huge aha in this area around the hours of work that I’ve been putting into the business. I feel like I’m working all the time, but when I actually sat down in a week and mapped it out, I realized I was spending a lot of time on a lot of other things rather than investing it into my own business growth.

And maybe if you sit down and really be honest with yourself, you might fall into this category too. Whichever one of the money blind spots you were struggling with. These were only a few examples. There is plenty more, but if you are looking for some help to identify and tackle your money blind spots, I would love to be your mentor.

There are opportunities to work with me one-on-one, or I also have my mastermind container called the Profit Collective. This container is to help six and multi-six figure business owners uncover their blind spots, create a profit focus strategy, and implement it with support and accountability. If you are ready to find your fastest path to your next level, come and check out the Profit Collective.

I’m gonna pop a link to find out more in the show notes for today’s episode. Because when you see these blind spots, you are able to navigate through them.

Coming back to the podcast episode. So we’ve spoken about what some of the money blind spots are. How do you actually fix them? Well, the first step is to actually figure out what they are, to actually identify what your blind spots are. But here’s the thing, they’re called blind spots for a reason. You can’t see them yourself, and so honestly, I believe the best way to start to do this work is through mentorship.

Having someone outside your business looking in and saying, Ugh, that’s what’s going on for you. Once you’ve identified what those blind spots are, the next step is to create an action plan around it. I like to focus on the lowest hanging fruit. So the thing that’s the easiest to tackle is a great place to start so that you can get some quick wins and have those little endorphin hits to encourage you to keep working on the bigger things.

So when you know what they are, take big action. I talk about this a lot inside my coaching container, the Profit Collective. I’m like, it’s action. You know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. You have to do the uncomfortable thing. And I really think the best way to do that is to tackle that first, as they say, eat the frog first.

So I need to wrap up today’s episode now, but I did just want to conclude by saying this. If you are feeling overwhelmed, stuck, and if you want to make more money and be able to create more balance in your life, you really need to identify what those money blind spots are so that you can create an action plan to navigate through.

Maybe you’ve listened to this episode and thought I don’t even have any, and I would challenge you that you probably do, but you just don’t know what they are yet. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of the podcast and I look forward to chatting to you again next week. Have a fabulous week.

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