Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / Let's make contracts and accounting fun with Braden Drake

Transcript

Let's make contracts and accounting fun with Braden Drake · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Braden: And the thing that took me a while to learn is that if I hire
• 0:03
  people initially on an hourly basis, I'm only going to be paying them
• 0:08
  if I have client work that needs to be done, and if I have client work
• 0:11
  that needs to be done, I have client revenue coming in to pay the person.
• 0:14
  So you likely can hire sooner than you think, which can free up your time to
• 0:18
  do the things that you need to do in your business to really push it forward.
• 0:24
  Becca: I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert,
• 0:26
  speaker and blogger, and you're listening to the wedding pros
• 0:29
  who are ready to grow podcast.
• 0:31
  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
• 0:35
  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
• 0:38
  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
• 0:42
  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you
• 0:46
  love, then you're in the right place.
• 0:48
  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:50
  Today, I'm chatting with Braden Drake, founder of Not Your Average Law Firm.
• 0:55
  His goal is to help business owners get their legal and finances sorted
• 0:58
  and stop being afraid of them.
• 1:00
  With a master's degree in tax law and a whole bundle of personality,
• 1:03
  Braden takes you through particularly really boring subjects, accounting
• 1:07
  and law, and brings them to life.
• 1:09
  Of course, we first met out in Las Vegas over some drinks and we even shared a
• 1:13
  bath together at the Museum of Selfies, which was a lot more PG than it sounds.
• 1:17
  And I knew right then that I had to get him on the podcast.
• 1:20
  So here he is today.
• 1:21
  Braden, welcome to the
• 1:22
  podcast.
• 1:23
  Braden: Hi, how are you?
• 1:24
  I'm super excited to be here.
• 1:25
  Becca: I'm so glad you're here.
• 1:26
  It's been a long time coming since we arranged this in that bathtub in Vegas.
• 1:30
  But I'm excited to dive into this conversation because
• 1:32
  we had a whole lot of fun.
• 1:33
  But what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?
• 1:36
  Braden: Yes, indeed.
• 1:37
  Indeed, what happens in the bathtub stays in the bathtub, my friends.
• 1:40
  Becca: Exactly.
• 1:41
  But saying that, I still need to get you on the podcast to talk
• 1:45
  to you about all of these things.
• 1:46
  Because what I found really interesting when I met you out in
• 1:48
  Vegas was how much you buck the trend.
• 1:51
  Because you are not your typical lawyer.
• 1:53
  You're not your typical accountant.
• 1:54
  And you do kind of talk about some of the most boring subjects at the conference.
• 2:00
  Yet you made it really fun.
• 2:01
  I like, how do you do that?
• 2:02
  Braden: Well, I mean, I think, okay, so first of all, anything
• 2:06
  can be exciting to anyone, right?
• 2:08
  So I would say the like planning and logistics, not that exciting, but like
• 2:12
  a lot of wedding planners, they're going to like, love that stuff.
• 2:14
  Right.
• 2:15
  Talk to me about how camera works.
• 2:16
  I'm going to fall asleep.
• 2:17
  We all have our own niche, right?
• 2:19
  So how can we radiate that enthusiasm?
• 2:23
  A.
• 2:23
  But B.
• 2:24
  A lot of the time stuff is just boring because we don't understand it.
• 2:27
  So if we can break it down into simpler terms, not so boring anymore.
• 2:31
  That's my goal anyway.
• 2:32
  Becca: It's so true.
• 2:33
  And also the way that you deliver it can be so much more fun.
• 2:35
  When you bring that energy to the stage and you bring, people
• 2:38
  with you, then you can make any subject sound more interesting.
• 2:42
  So take me back, take me back to the start of your journey.
• 2:45
  How did you end up working in law, working with numbers in the first place?
• 2:50
  Braden: So a little bit roundabout, I always knew that I wanted to have
• 2:53
  kind of an office job because I grew up, my dad is a general contractor.
• 2:58
  He does like roofing all summer.
• 3:00
  And I grew up being forced to work with him and I knew that manual labor
• 3:03
  was not maybe my calling, right?
• 3:05
  So in high school, I did all the subjects and I thought maybe like law would be fun.
• 3:11
  And I dabbled through a few different things in undergrad, but to cut out all
• 3:15
  the long story, ended up in law school.
• 3:18
  And I decided pretty early on in that process that I also
• 3:22
  wanted to have my own business.
• 3:23
  Becca: Amazing.
• 3:23
  Now, please tell me, is law school in America exactly
• 3:26
  like it is on Legally Blonde?
• 3:28
  Because that is one of my favorite movies in the world.
• 3:30
  Braden: I would say it's like 80 to 90 percent accurate.
• 3:33
  So I never got kicked out of class for not knowing what
• 3:37
  subject matter jurisdiction was.
• 3:39
  But the professors would call on you, and we had one professor who would make you,
• 3:42
  he'd say, rise to the call of greatness.
• 3:45
  And then they would just pepper you with questions, which actually trains
• 3:48
  you for a future when you're going to be like in court in front of a judge.
• 3:51
  And if you don't know the answers to the questions, you might get scolded
• 3:54
  for being unprepared if they're kind of a mean professor, but usually you
• 3:58
  just be embarrassed and they tell you to sit down and then you would get like
• 4:01
  a negative mark on your participation for not being prepared for class.
• 4:04
  Becca: And no one just broke into song like they do in the musical.
• 4:07
  Braden: No, well, sometimes like outside of class because we all were
• 4:12
  pretty hyped up on like various types of caffeine trying to study for finals.
• 4:16
  So you never know, but not to the same degree.
• 4:20
  No, unfortunately.
• 4:21
  Becca: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:22
  When I was growing up, I went through a phase of, I need to
• 4:24
  be a lawyer because I want to be like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.
• 4:27
  So when you graduated, you finished college, you decided
• 4:30
  you wanted to go out on your own.
• 4:33
  Like, that's a big step.
• 4:34
  Did you just do that straight away as soon as you graduated?
• 4:37
  Braden: I did.
• 4:38
  Yes.
• 4:38
  But I always like to give the caveat because, you know, transparency
• 4:41
  is one of our company core values.
• 4:42
  I think it's very important.
• 4:43
  Otherwise, I think if we're not transparent, we say we set unreasonable
• 4:47
  expectations for other people.
• 4:48
  So it's important that we address our privileges and all of those things.
• 4:52
  So at the time I moved in with my now husband, like my
• 4:55
  second week of law school.
• 4:57
  And he had already been a practicing attorney for eight years.
• 4:59
  So I kind of had that financial fallback once I graduated because
• 5:04
  I'm like, worse comes to worse.
• 5:05
  I don't have to worry about like losing my apartment or having the electricity
• 5:09
  shut off kind of a thing, but it gave me the freedom to really grow my business for
• 5:14
  two to three years and laid a foundation.
• 5:16
  Yeah.
• 5:16
  Becca: Well, an incredible.
• 5:17
  opportunity for you to be able to do that.
• 5:20
  I think it's really important that we talk about that actually, because
• 5:22
  we do all have different privileges.
• 5:24
  When I grew my business, people often say to me, how did you grow
• 5:26
  your business around your children?
• 5:28
  How did you bring in the finances?
• 5:29
  And I was lucky enough that my husband bought in money.
• 5:32
  And so that to start with, I could earn less money and look after
• 5:36
  the children and then grow the business to where it is today.
• 5:38
  So yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 5:40
  It's important.
• 5:40
  We're transparent about this stuff.
• 5:42
  So, what you do now is, well, where I met you is part of the wedding industry.
• 5:46
  You seem to have quite a lot of wedding industry kind of
• 5:48
  clients, you're in that arena.
• 5:50
  How did you end up going from, I want to do law, have my own
• 5:53
  business, to suddenly working in this wonderful world of weddings?
• 5:57
  Braden: So I used to work at this retail store called West Elm.
• 6:00
  Do you have West Elm over in the UK?
• 6:02
  Becca: We don't, but I know what it is.
• 6:03
  Braden: Okay, so it's like modern, like mid century modern, like pretty
• 6:07
  hip, pretty trendy, kind of expensive.
• 6:08
  But I connected with a lot of interior designers there, and then they
• 6:11
  also do pop up shops every weekend.
• 6:13
  So creatives, artists, makers, crafters would come in and sell their stuff
• 6:18
  inside the store, which is pretty cool.
• 6:20
  And I would always talk to the people.
• 6:22
  I was trying to start my business and I ended up niching
• 6:25
  and working with creatives.
• 6:27
  But then some of the folks there told me about this group
• 6:30
  called rising tide society.
• 6:31
  Are you familiar with rising tide?
• 6:33
  No.
• 6:34
  Okay.
• 6:34
  So rising tide is now a global organization for creatives and they do
• 6:39
  monthly meetups called Tuesdays together.
• 6:42
  It was founded by Natalie Frank.
• 6:44
  A lot of people know her honey book ended up buying that several years ago.
• 6:49
  Honey book no longer owns it.
• 6:50
  We've like spin off into a nonprofit, but I started going to their meetings.
• 6:54
  And I started speaking at the meetings and it's just it's very predominantly
• 6:59
  like a wedding industry first organization because that's what it started.
• 7:03
  And so that's just kind of how I organically grew my
• 7:06
  following in the wedding space.
• 7:08
  And now I speak at Wedding MBA and have a lot of affiliates and referral partners
• 7:12
  and friends like yourself in the industry.
• 7:14
  So yeah, it's probably about 50 percent of our audience.
• 7:17
  Becca: And I think typically, from my experience, from the clients I work
• 7:21
  with, we find that a lot of them are really good at what they do, right?
• 7:25
  They're amazing at being florists.
• 7:26
  They're amazing at making cakes.
• 7:28
  I'm there helping them with their marketing.
• 7:30
  But then it comes to the parts of the things that you help
• 7:32
  them with, and they just freeze.
• 7:35
  They don't want to talk about it.
• 7:36
  They don't understand it.
• 7:38
  They just don't.
• 7:39
  Panic.
• 7:39
  Is that your experience when you first come across people?
• 7:42
  Braden: With a lot of them, obviously it varies based on personality type
• 7:47
  and whether you have like an avoidant personality where you like to avoid your
• 7:50
  taxes or whether you meet it head on.
• 7:52
  I find a lot of the wedding planners we work with, they're kind of like,
• 7:56
  we all have those friends who are like, Oh my God, don't judge me.
• 7:58
  My house is such a mess.
• 8:00
  And then you walk in and like, it's pristinely perfect.
• 8:03
  That's how a lot of planners are because they're very, very detailed and organized,
• 8:08
  not all of them, but most of them.
• 8:10
  And then a lot of the other creatives, like we have some photographers, DJs.
• 8:16
  Some of them are a little less buttoned up when it comes to
• 8:18
  the backside of the business.
• 8:19
  So it's always, it's always a mystery what we're going to get
• 8:21
  when we start digging into people's taxes and bookkeeping and things.
• 8:24
  Becca: And so one of your main goals in your business is to help people undo the
• 8:29
  pickles that they get themselves into to try and get their business sorted.
• 8:33
  What is kind of the heart behind that mission?
• 8:36
  Braden: Well, it's really just, What's been necessitated like
• 8:40
  since we started the business.
• 8:41
  So a swear warning for everyone, but my podcast and signal or her signature
• 8:46
  offer and my book are all titled unfuck your biz, a step by step process to
• 8:50
  get your legal and tax shit legit.
• 8:52
  And that kind of came from a business mastermind that I did where they
• 8:56
  were asking me these people who were trying to learn about my business.
• 8:59
  They were asking me who I help and who I work with.
• 9:02
  And they all assumed it would be brand new business owners.
• 9:05
  And as you know, as a marketer, I use the term, I said, well, no, a lot of
• 9:08
  new business owners aren't problem aware that they need our services.
• 9:12
  They're a lot more excited to like do their branding and build their websites.
• 9:15
  And then they come to us after about three years and they say, Oh no,
• 9:20
  Brayden, I didn't settle this legal and tax foundations up from the start.
• 9:23
  Can you help me unfuck my business?
• 9:26
  I kind of said that as I was just rambling and then they said, they all
• 9:29
  said, Oh, I like that as like web copy.
• 9:31
  And it kind of expanded from there.
• 9:33
  And now that's really part of our mission because I don't think you can grow like
• 9:37
  a really solid, successful business.
• 9:40
  if you're constantly like scrambling on the back end.
• 9:44
  Becca: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:44
  I see it all of the time.
• 9:46
  So there's two main parts that you try and help people with.
• 9:48
  As I mentioned at the beginning, there's the finance side
• 9:51
  and there's the legal side.
• 9:52
  Now a bit of a disclaimer, because obviously a lot of my
• 9:54
  audience at UK based a lot of what you do is based out in the US.
• 9:57
  So we're not going to get into the nitty gritty details, because
• 10:00
  obviously your tax deadlines, everything like that is different.
• 10:02
  different, but I do think some of the principles and some of the commonalities
• 10:06
  are definitely the same, which is why I want to have this conversation.
• 10:09
  So let's take the law side of things first, the contracts.
• 10:12
  I know you have your amazing contract club.
• 10:14
  You're big on contracts.
• 10:15
  What are some of the common mistakes you find that wedding business owners
• 10:19
  are making when it comes to contracts or maybe not even having a contract?
• 10:24
  Braden: Well, not having a contract is mistake number one, right?
• 10:27
  Mistake number two would be having contracts that don't cover
• 10:30
  everything you need them to cover.
• 10:32
  Like, if your contract's only one page, that's really just probably a proposal.
• 10:36
  It's not even really a contract.
• 10:38
  And then the third big thing we see is contracts that are
• 10:42
  contradictory or just confusing.
• 10:45
  Because what happens is if you buy a template here, and then you get some
• 10:49
  provisions from your best friend's contract, and then another friend
• 10:52
  gives you some of their provisions, We call them Franken contracts, fairly
• 10:55
  self explanatory, they're hodgepodge.
• 10:58
  And none of the definitions line up.
• 11:01
  Yeah.
• 11:01
  And it just is a mess.
• 11:03
  It's a mess.
• 11:04
  Becca: So typically then for your general wedding supplier, what kind of contracts
• 11:08
  should they have in place or what should they have hovered in those contracts?
• 11:12
  Braden: Well, the main thing is going to be your client contract.
• 11:14
  So the whatever contract you're going to have your client sign.
• 11:17
  And then that needs to outline obviously the payment terms, the scope of
• 11:20
  services, any kind of cancellation.
• 11:23
  So we all learned a lot of life lessons in 2020 when it came to event
• 11:27
  postponements and cancellations.
• 11:29
  And we have something called the force majeure clauses here, all of that's
• 11:33
  super important, basically covering the what ifs of every scenario, if anyone's
• 11:38
  been in business long enough, a lot of those what ifs have become realities
• 11:43
  for either of them or friends, so we can address those in the contract.
• 11:47
  And then we have other contracts that are important as well.
• 11:49
  You need to have website agreements, privacy policies, even here in the U.
• 11:53
  S.
• 11:54
  We recommend that the people meet GDPR standards if their
• 11:57
  websites are accessible in Europe.
• 11:59
  And why wouldn't they be?
• 12:00
  And then you want to have independent contractor agreements.
• 12:03
  We even have a podcast release agreement.
• 12:05
  I don't really use it, but some, some people really like to use that.
• 12:09
  And there's a bunch, bunch more.
• 12:11
  Becca: Okay.
• 12:11
  So there might already be people panicking, thinking, Oh my goodness,
• 12:15
  I don't have any of this stuff.
• 12:16
  I don't even know where to start.
• 12:18
  Like give them some guidance, make them feel less scared.
• 12:21
  Braden: Yeah.
• 12:22
  So find some solid templates.
• 12:24
  If you are U S based, you can definitely grab our contract club.
• 12:27
  If you're not U S You still might find it helpful, but I
• 12:30
  can't really make any guarantees.
• 12:32
  So I just usually don't sell it to people outside the U S.
• 12:35
  But I know that there are fabulous attorneys in the UK and all over the world
• 12:39
  that have their own versions of templates.
• 12:41
  So you really just need, like, one solid contract for your
• 12:44
  clients and your services.
• 12:46
  You need your privacy policy, your web terms, and then everything else
• 12:49
  is, like, on an as needed basis.
• 12:51
  So if you hire a virtual assistant, they might have a contract for you to sign.
• 12:55
  If not, you can get one for them to sign at that point.
• 12:59
  point in time.
• 12:59
  Becca: Yeah.
• 13:00
  And absolutely.
• 13:01
  We definitely need something like the contract club here in the UK.
• 13:03
  We were having this discussion just the other day because I just
• 13:07
  think it's amazing what you do.
• 13:08
  You keep it low cost.
• 13:09
  You have all the contracts people need and then they can go on and build on them.
• 13:13
  So maybe what we need to do, Brayden is get a UK lawyer to look over
• 13:16
  the contract club so that we can decide once and for all whether
• 13:19
  or not we can use it here or not.
• 13:20
  So maybe I'm going to put that on my to do list.
• 13:22
  Braden: Yeah.
• 13:22
  I mean, I would love to do that, but then I'm like, I've, I've been, my
• 13:27
  wheels have been spinning, right?
• 13:28
  As a business owner, I'm like, but why would a UK attorney like then want to
• 13:32
  put a rubber stamp on like my program?
• 13:34
  Cause then like, they're my competitor, but then they're sending me business.
• 13:37
  I'm sure there's a collaborative way to do this.
• 13:39
  We'll have to find one.
• 13:41
  Or they just create their own.
• 13:42
  Becca: I'm all about community over competition.
• 13:44
  So I'm all for finding someone who's up for collaborating.
• 13:47
  So if anyone's got any recommendations, who's listening to this podcast,
• 13:50
  let me know, because I would love to put a UK stamp on the contract
• 13:53
  club so that we can so I can promote it here in the UK as well.
• 13:57
  Braden: One day I might just hire a UK licensed attorney to join
• 14:00
  our law firm, but then I have to figure out like all the licensing
• 14:03
  logistics of how that works, you know,
• 14:05
  Becca: definitely one to watch for the future.
• 14:06
  I'm going to be keeping my eyes and ears out for that because
• 14:08
  I do think it's worthwhile.
• 14:09
  But if you're in the U S a hundred percent, check out the contract club
• 14:12
  because it's a great place to start.
• 14:14
  Okay.
• 14:14
  We talked about law then let's move on to finances.
• 14:17
  So when it comes to the accountancy side of businesses,
• 14:21
  where are the common mistakes?
• 14:22
  you see people making?
• 14:24
  Braden: The biggest one, I would say that the biggest and the
• 14:28
  easiest to solve is just not having separately maintained finances.
• 14:34
  So again, I'm not going to speak to how bookkeeping is supposed
• 14:37
  to work all around the world or how the tax returns are filed.
• 14:40
  But in order to know how much money your business made and how much money
• 14:44
  your business spent, you have to be able to track that in some manner.
• 14:47
  And it's a lot easier to track if you're paying for everything
• 14:51
  out of separate bank accounts.
• 14:52
  So open a business bank account.
• 14:55
  The sounds self explanatory or obvious to some people, but we have
• 14:59
  new clients and unpack your biz all the time that don't do this.
• 15:02
  And then what we have to do is they have to send us their personal bank
• 15:05
  statements and spend, you know, hours highlighting the things that were business
• 15:08
  related versus not business related.
• 15:11
  What's really fun is we also work with a lot of drag queens, and then
• 15:15
  we have to comb through their Amazon statements to figure out like what's
• 15:18
  drag hair and makeup and costuming versus like personal expenses.
• 15:22
  So if you separate it becomes a lot easier.
• 15:25
  Becca: Yeah.
• 15:25
  And that's not that hard to do.
• 15:26
  I mean, even here in the UK, we have these online banks, Starling Monzo, things like
• 15:30
  that, where we can just open an account.
• 15:32
  We can open a business account.
• 15:33
  There's no charges on it.
• 15:34
  So if you're listening to this and you haven't separated your accounts,
• 15:36
  there is no reason not to go on right now and go and open another
• 15:40
  account and start separating it out.
• 15:42
  What about keeping money back?
• 15:44
  for taxes and or profits because I sometimes see people just seeing
• 15:49
  money in their account and then spending that money right away.
• 15:51
  Braden: Yeah.
• 15:52
  So if anyone, I mean profit first is, I know it's really popular here.
• 15:55
  Is it popular in the UK?
• 15:57
  Becca: Yeah, it is.
• 15:58
  Braden: Yeah.
• 15:59
  I would think that the concepts are pretty applicable and he doesn't
• 16:02
  really give tax percentages.
• 16:03
  So then it's going to be even more applicable.
• 16:05
  Yeah.
• 16:05
  I write about all of this in my book as well, but I, mine's very much
• 16:09
  geared towards how much you should be saving in the U S as well, but everyone
• 16:13
  can figure that out and then what I recommend is if some of those online
• 16:17
  banks you recommended do auto savings, like some of ours do, that's fantastic.
• 16:22
  Because you can figure out the percentage you need to save and then you can have
• 16:25
  that amount auto saved every time you have money deposited and you can do
• 16:29
  the same for some profits set aside as well because what a lot of people end
• 16:34
  up finding is that if they don't really focus on saving taxes first they get on
• 16:39
  what I call the oh shit cycle of back taxes and then if they don't think about
• 16:43
  saving profit or paying themselves they go to file their tax return at whatever
• 16:47
  point in time and then they're like oh Shit, I made like 80 grand, right?
• 16:53
  But why don't I have any money?
• 16:55
  Why don't I have any money left?
• 16:57
  And why am I in business if I don't have any money to, you know,
• 17:00
  save for whatever my big personal goals are at the end of the day.
• 17:04
  So you have to kind of force yourself to do that as you go along.
• 17:06
  Becca: And it's amazing how quickly you can shift youpaying themselves they
• 17:09
  go to file for that profit first model and you start moving money across.
• 17:12
  I like to coin my own version of this, which I like to call Disney first.
• 17:16
  So in my business, the money comes out and goes into my Disney fund
• 17:20
  before anything else comes out.
• 17:22
  And that grows really fast.
• 17:24
  My Disney fund is growing fast.
• 17:26
  But if I didn't do that, if I didn't go Disney first, I guarantee it would
• 17:30
  all be gone by the end of the month on something that I didn't really need.
• 17:33
  Braden: And is that, is that for like Disney world in Florida
• 17:36
  or like, okay, nice, nice.
• 17:39
  Becca: Yeah.
• 17:39
  I'm, I'm saving Disney first.
• 17:40
  All my profit is going to Disney world Florida next Easter,
• 17:43
  which I'm very excited about.
• 17:45
  But yeah, it really does make a difference to put some of that money
• 17:48
  aside right at the start of the month.
• 17:51
  The other thing that I find people are scared of is the thaw
• 17:54
  about the fact that they have to pay their tax so far in advance.
• 17:57
  Now, again, I know it's going to be different between the UK and the US,
• 18:01
  but I'm trying to normalize getting more excited about the tax return
• 18:04
  because we can pay off our taxes early.
• 18:06
  Like, we can save money and then if there's extra money left, spend it.
• 18:10
  Like, how are you making tax more exciting for people?
• 18:12
  Braden: Well, first of all, it's like, This isn't really exciting,
• 18:16
  but no one wants to get stuck with a big bill like down the road.
• 18:19
  So like, let's pay in chunks so that we can prevent that.
• 18:23
  And then if you automate it, like again, doesn't really make it exciting, but
• 18:26
  if you automate the savings, then it makes it less painful to go pay it.
• 18:30
  Because a lot of people when they automate it, they don't
• 18:33
  even really notice it's gone.
• 18:34
  And then when they go to pay the tax, you're like, Oh, holy shit,
• 18:36
  there's 5, 000, like 5, 000 in here.
• 18:39
  I always say 5, 000 when I talk about international currency, because then
• 18:42
  it's universally, universally applicable as opposed to saying dollar or pound.
• 18:47
  But everyone gets the picture.
• 18:49
  So that's really, that's really just the best way to do it.
• 18:52
  It's kind of the out of sight, out of mind approach, in my opinion.
• 18:54
  Becca: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:55
  Now, one of the other things I thought was really interesting when I came to
• 18:58
  your stage talk in Vegas was when you were talking about some of the myths
• 19:02
  around spending before your tax break.
• 19:05
  year is up.
• 19:06
  And so you were talking about the fact that people are like, Oh, let's just
• 19:09
  spend loads of money because the tax is up and it will come against my tax bill.
• 19:13
  But actually that's kind of not quite what we should be doing.
• 19:16
  Braden: Yeah, because we have a lot of people, they don't, they, they
• 19:20
  misunderstand the difference between tax deductions and tax credits.
• 19:23
  Do you have deductions and credits in your tax system?
• 19:26
  Becca: Well, we have, we have deductions, but I think sometimes we
• 19:31
  forget that a deduction doesn't mean that we're getting the money back.
• 19:33
  Braden: Yeah.
• 19:34
  So a deduction, like if you make a hundred thousand, let's like, so let's
• 19:37
  say you make a hundred thousand in revenue and then you spend 20, 000.
• 19:41
  Those are your deductions.
• 19:42
  So now your profit is 80, 000, right?
• 19:45
  So if you're on a 10 percent tax bracket, 10 percent of a hundred is 10 K.
• 19:50
  10 percent of 80 is eight K.
• 19:53
  So you spent 20, 000 and you saved 2, 000, right?
• 19:57
  2, 000 whatever.
• 19:58
  So you're not saving that full 20, 000 that you spent and that's
• 20:01
  how a lot of people think that it works and it, it doesn't.
• 20:04
  So I always ask people, usually from stage, I say, if you go into
• 20:09
  the store tomorrow and they have MacBooks on sale for 20 percent
• 20:13
  off, like, would you buy one?
• 20:14
  Would you buy one?
• 20:16
  Becca: No.
• 20:16
  Not unless I needed one.
• 20:17
  Braden: Yeah, so that's that like actual correct answer because if you already
• 20:22
  need one, if it's on your shopping list, then you're like, Oh, well, I
• 20:25
  was not going to buy it till like two weeks from now, but it's on sale now.
• 20:28
  So I'll buy it now.
• 20:29
  Great.
• 20:30
  If you're not going to need one for two years, then you
• 20:31
  probably don't need to buy it.
• 20:32
  Tax deductions work the same way.
• 20:34
  Buy what you need for your business, buy what's going to make you an ROI.
• 20:38
  And then you just take the benefit then after the fact on your taxes.
• 20:42
  Becca: Yes, that makes perfect sense to me.
• 20:44
  Great, great analogy.
• 20:45
  I understand it now.
• 20:46
  Okay, one of the other things I think we need to do in the wedding industry
• 20:49
  is normalize talking about this stuff, talking about money, because especially
• 20:53
  here in England, as soon as someone talks about money, we all go very polite
• 20:56
  and we don't like to talk about it.
• 20:57
  But one of the things I absolutely love about what you do is your podcast,
• 21:02
  where you talk about your own family.
• 21:04
  finances.
• 21:05
  So I like to have a little cheeky listen to that.
• 21:07
  I like to listen to what Braden's up to and you talk very candidly, very
• 21:11
  openly about your profit for the month, your losses, if there are losses, your
• 21:16
  expenses, and I love that because I think it's so transparent and so helpful.
• 21:22
  So, obviously, we're not expecting everyone to do the same, but what was it
• 21:25
  that brought you to the place where you decided to do that, and why do you do it?
• 21:29
  Braden: Well, A, it's just, I like, can't help myself from
• 21:32
  oversharing to begin with.
• 21:34
  It's just who I am as a person.
• 21:35
  Do you have the phrase, do you have the phrase over there, like, never talk
• 21:39
  about politics, money, or religion?
• 21:41
  That's something that, like, parents and grandparents like to say all the time.
• 21:44
  Yeah, so I think that's how a lot of us are raised.
• 21:46
  They're all considered like kind of taboo topics, at least to talk about
• 21:49
  with people you aren't super close with.
• 21:51
  But from my perspective, it's like we all enter our business really
• 21:54
  having no idea what the norm is with regard to how much we're gonna pay
• 21:58
  in taxes, what our expenses are, how long it takes to be profitable, when
• 22:02
  can we get expect to make money?
• 22:04
  How much do we actually need to gross in a revenue in order to be
• 22:06
  able to like pay all of our bills?
• 22:09
  So I try to normalize that A and B just to be frank, like talking about the numbers
• 22:16
  highlights the importance of knowing your numbers, which also promotes my business.
• 22:20
  So it's kind of a win, win, win.
• 22:22
  I asked guests to come on my podcast and share all their numbers.
• 22:25
  So I also have to put my money where my mouth is and do the same and hope
• 22:29
  that it helps people in the process.
• 22:30
  That's the goal.
• 22:31
  Becca: Yeah, I think it's really interesting.
• 22:32
  And I think it normalizes things like the fact that some months
• 22:35
  are better than other months, that that's totally normal in business,
• 22:38
  that sometimes we have unexpected expenses or unexpected drop offs.
• 22:42
  And I think everyone in their own wedding businesses thinks these
• 22:45
  things are only happening to them.
• 22:47
  So actually it's really refreshing to hear from someone else.
• 22:50
  I know it's not the same kind of business, but actually to just
• 22:52
  hear the ups and downs of business and what's going on out there.
• 22:55
  Braden: Yeah, we talk, we talk a lot about like the importance of
• 22:57
  tracking your time and knowing your numbers and knowing your margins, you
• 23:00
  know, how much to charge for things.
• 23:02
  I just, when we launched to unfuck your business, the signature
• 23:04
  service, we priced it at 3, 000.
• 23:07
  And then I, we were doing the time tracking and I paid
• 23:12
  my team for some clients.
• 23:14
  I paid my team members almost 4, and hourly fees for a single client.
• 23:19
  So if I had this data beforehand, I would have priced it differently.
• 23:23
  Now we've priced the service at 5, 000.
• 23:25
  It's like, if you don't know all those numbers, you can't price it.
• 23:28
  But also I share the story on my podcast so that people know like,
• 23:32
  You're not the only one probably making pricing mistakes in your business.
• 23:35
  Like we're all doing it and we, we live in and we learn.
• 23:38
  Becca: Well, one of the things I've alluded to all the way through this
• 23:40
  conversation is how you're bucking the trend to pretty much everyone else.
• 23:44
  And I love that you lean into that.
• 23:46
  I love that you're completely unapologetically yourself.
• 23:49
  It's the way that I teach my wedding business owners to be, I'm like, be
• 23:52
  yourself, don't try and be someone else, but I'm sure in the world that you're
• 23:56
  in, in law and finance, that's kind of.
• 23:59
  unexpected.
• 24:00
  So how do you find the confidence to just be yourself and what benefits do
• 24:04
  you think that brings to your business?
• 24:06
  Braden: How do I find the confidence?
• 24:07
  That one I don't really know.
• 24:09
  I think my, my best friend one time told me that I just like walk
• 24:12
  through life within, with like a, with a confidence that is really,
• 24:17
  what's the word I'm looking for here?
• 24:18
  Unwarranted, I think was probably what she's, what she said, which was, you know,
• 24:23
  a nice, like, playful way to phrase it.
• 24:25
  But I decided I actually when I first graduated from law school, I
• 24:29
  did like dress up every day when I went to my like office at the WeWork
• 24:34
  and by dress up I mean I would wear like nice jeans and like dress shoes
• 24:37
  and like a cardigan or a sweater and it just really didn't feel like me.
• 24:41
  And then I was like, my clients don't want to be dressed up every day,
• 24:46
  even if we have in person meetings, they don't want to come to zoom
• 24:48
  calls and like, feel like that.
• 24:50
  They need to, you know, get all ready and everything.
• 24:52
  So I took it to quite an extreme and just started showing up in my pajamas.
• 24:56
  I probably need to find like a happy medium.
• 24:59
  But ultimately, like what our clients often share is that they come to us
• 25:04
  because they don't want to feel judged.
• 25:06
  or intimidated or like looked down upon and we cultivate a safe space for that.
• 25:11
  Like they don't want to be judged with regard to what they're wearing or what
• 25:14
  their business is like on the backside.
• 25:15
  Right.
• 25:16
  So we try to keep it chill and fun and judgment free over here.
• 25:20
  Becca: I love that.
• 25:21
  And I love everything that you do.
• 25:23
  So keep on being you keep on being yourself.
• 25:25
  And if you're listening to this, and you've enjoyed this conversation
• 25:27
  with Brayden, go find him right now.
• 25:30
  online, go listen to his podcast, go listen to his revenue reports, because
• 25:34
  although it's not always 100 percent relevant to hit us here in the UK, you
• 25:38
  absolutely will get some stuff from it.
• 25:40
  And it's just refreshing.
• 25:41
  And it's everything that I teach you guys at home to be,
• 25:44
  which is just go be yourself.
• 25:46
  Don't try and feel like you have to fit in the mold of every single
• 25:48
  other wedding planner or dress like every single other cake maker.
• 25:52
  Be yourself, bring your personality to the forefront because you will
• 25:55
  find the people, you will attract the people that want to work with you.
• 25:58
  Brayden, before I let you go, I always end the podcast with the same question.
• 26:02
  And it's this, what's one thing you personally wish you'd known
• 26:04
  sooner in your own business?
• 26:06
  Braden: Well, you really end it there on a real tough question.
• 26:10
  The first thing that comes to my mind is that hiring isn't all that difficult.
• 26:16
  So I really wish I would have done it sooner.
• 26:18
  I drug my feet for a really long time because I thought I had to be
• 26:22
  like at a certain revenue marker.
• 26:24
  And the thing that took me a while to learn is that if I hire people initially
• 26:28
  on an hourly basis, I'm only going to be paying them if I have client work that
• 26:33
  needs to be done, and if I have client work that needs to be done, I have client
• 26:36
  revenue coming in to pay the person.
• 26:37
  So you likely can hire sooner than you think, which can free up your time to
• 26:42
  do the things that you need to do in your business to really push it forward.
• 26:45
  Becca: Awesome.
• 26:46
  Yeah.
• 26:46
  And I think, again, I think most people hire too late because they think that
• 26:50
  they have to be a certain level or be a certain kind of business before
• 26:53
  you can bring people on to help you.
• 26:55
  But ultimately in any business, you get to a point where if you want to
• 26:58
  grow, you've got to grow the team because we are just one person.
• 27:01
  We can't do it all.
• 27:03
  Brayden, it's been so fun.
• 27:04
  I'm glad to find you.
• 27:05
  finally have you on the podcast.
• 27:07
  I cannot wait to spend some more time with you out in Vegas.
• 27:10
  Emily promised that this year we're going to ride the roller coaster together and
• 27:14
  I am not going to ride it on my own.
• 27:15
  So I'm looking forward to that.
• 27:17
  Some of my UK friends are also joining us in Vegas this year, which
• 27:20
  is going to be a whole lot of fun.
• 27:22
  So if you're listening to this and you still want to come along and be with
• 27:25
  us in Vegas, there's still tickets to Wedding MBA available, drop me a
• 27:28
  message and I can send you more details.
• 27:30
  Brayden, if people want to find out more about what you do,
• 27:32
  where's the best place for you?
• 27:33
  For them to find you spending your time.
• 27:36
  Braden: Follow on Instagram, not AVG law.
• 27:40
  So that's a short for not average law, not AVG law.
• 27:43
  You can join the Braden's Besties Facebook group and then of course subscribe to the
• 27:48
  podcast and fuck your biz asterisk for the U and you should find it just fine.
• 27:52
  Becca: Amazing.
• 27:53
  I will make sure I put all of those links in the show notes
• 27:56
  and I'll see you very soon.
• 28:01
  I love that conversation with Brayden.
• 28:02
  So much fun.
• 28:04
  I told you that he had bundles of personality, and I love that he walks
• 28:07
  into a room with such confidence.
• 28:09
  In a space, which is typically really boring, he makes it a whole lot
• 28:13
  more fun and a lot more interesting.
• 28:15
  I hope you found that helpful.
• 28:16
  If you've got more questions, reach out to myself or Brayden,
• 28:19
  and I'll see you next time.