Latest / The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business / EP130 - From Solopreneur to CEO: Scaling Your Financial Foundation

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EP130 - From Solopreneur to CEO: Scaling Your Financial Foundation · The 3Bz Podcast - Building Better Business

• 0:01
  Hi there business owner, and welcome to the Three BS Podcast,
• 0:04
  the place where we go beyond the numbers and dive into the
• 0:07
  strategies to help you build a Better Business one step at a
• 0:10
  time. I'm your host, Stephanie, a
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  multi awarding entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in
• 0:15
  the bookkeeping and currency world.
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  If you're a business owner looking to streamline, grow and
• 0:19
  get back the time that you deserve, you're in the right
• 0:21
  place tackling real world problems, answering tough
• 0:24
  questions and digging deep into business building secrets in
• 0:27
  just 15 minutes each week. So Are you ready to build a
• 0:31
  Better Business with confidence and clarity?
• 0:33
  Then let's go. Hello and welcome back to
• 0:36
  another episode of The Three B's podcast.
• 0:39
  As always, I'm your host, Stephanie Marshall, your go to
• 0:42
  for straight talking finance, business strategy and
• 0:46
  sustainable success to help you build a Better Business.
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  This episode is for the business owners who are ready to go but
• 0:54
  don't want to lose their minds or their margins in the process.
• 0:57
  Now, if you've ever thought that I want a scale, but I don't want
• 1:00
  a huge team, I feel like maybe I'm the bottleneck in my own
• 1:04
  business. I'm earning more, but I still
• 1:06
  feel just as chaotic. Any of this rings true?
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  Then this episode is for you. We're talking about what it
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  really means to go from solopreneur to CEO and how your
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  financial foundation has to shift if you want to grow with
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  stability and not stress. Let's get into it.
• 1:24
  Let's get something straight. Being a solopreneur isn't small.
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  It's bold, it's powerful, but it often means that you're doing
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  everything and wearing all the hats.
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  The shift to CEO isn't just about job titles, suits or even
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  mindset, but it is about how you think, decide and lead.
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  ACEO knows what their numbers are telling them, whether time
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  is best spent and not spent, when and where to delegate and
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  how to create consistency and not chaos within the business.
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  And the 1st place that that shift has to happen in your
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  business, your finances. Here's what I see all the time.
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  Your revenue has grown within your business, but your profit
• 2:06
  just hasn't. You're not paying yourself
• 2:08
  properly. You have no idea if you can even
• 2:11
  afford help to get stuff in freelancers or employed, or
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  you're scared of that or tax bills because you don't know
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  what's coming and you haven't saved for it.
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  And it's like that all the time. None of these are a strategy
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  that is survival, and in business in the early years,
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  that is sometimes what it takes. But if you now want to move from
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  reactive to strategic, your financial foundation has to
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  support you, not just report back at year end.
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  And if you go up to any of the previous episodes, you'll hear
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  me go on and on and on about the importance of knowing your
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  numbers within the year end and planning ahead rather than
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  surviving and waiting for that tax bill to drop that you
• 2:50
  probably can't afford. Let's simplify this.
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  There are three things you need in place before you try to scale
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  your business. Number one, visibility.
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  You can't fix what you can't see.
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  You need regular sight into your profit and loss cash flow,
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  forecasting revenue by service or by stream, your break even
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  point, the tax that is owed and when.
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  Because your numbers don't lie, but they also don't shout.
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  You have to look or get a bookkeeper account in that will
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  tell you and shout at you so that you know what's going on in
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  your business #2 pricing for growth.
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  Most solopreneurs under charge because they base pricing on
• 3:32
  time and outcome, and that's a huge shift that you have to
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  make. I started my booking practice
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  charging £10 an hour. I talk about it a lot on this
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  podcast, and I will keep talking about it because I've been
• 3:45
  there. I've made that mistake.
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  I've made that starting point that I probably shouldn't have
• 3:50
  done and there's definitely been times where I should have
• 3:52
  increased prices sooner than I did or gave discounts when I
• 3:56
  shouldn't have done because many of us as business owners just
• 4:00
  want to get the clients to the door, especially in those early
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  days. So now it's really important as
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  we shift into the CEO mindset and you'll see that brand about
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  on social media. What I mean is started thinking
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  about yourself as a business owner and not just working for a
• 4:14
  living, working for other people or creating a product.
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  Become a business owner in your mind, become ACEO, somebody who
• 4:22
  runs a business, not works in it all the time as CEO prices for
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  sustainability of the business to cover team or tools to pay
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  themselves 1st and to invest in growth of the business.
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  If you want to scale, if you want to grow and build a Better
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  Business, which I presume you are by watching or listening to
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  this podcast, you need to start by making sure your pricing
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  actually lets you do that and three systems that support
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  scaling. Scaling without systems is just
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  working harder. You need bookkeeping softwares
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  that update automatically. These bank feeds are in every
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  bookkeeping software now and they are crucial for knowing
• 5:01
  what you're doing and keeping things nice and clear.
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  Clear process is again a key for client onboarding and invoicing.
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  Like getting paid for your jobs is the number one priority of
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  your business. You if you're not getting paid,
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  you don't have a business. It's just a hobby.
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  And if you're growing, looking to grow and scale and succeed,
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  there's going to need to do money in that business to pay
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  these people. You need a plan for VAT, for
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  taxes and payroll and space in your calendar that isn't
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  firefighting. And no, you don't have to do it
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  all alone, but you do have to know what is happening.
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  Like this business is yours and you are in charge of it, so you
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  need to know what's going on at all times.
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  And you can have the best systems, procedures, and
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  policies in the world. But if you're still stuck
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  thinking like a freelancer, you'll always feel on the edge.
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  So these are the mindset shifts that have to happen when you go
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  from solopreneur working, having a business that you run and
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  working all the time, to this CEO owning a business, building
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  and scaling something. Sustainable mindset #1 is you've
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  got to stop saying yes to everything.
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  And it's the complete opposite of what I see some people say.
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  Because yes, opportunities do come from opportunities.
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  But not saying yes to everything is part of setting those
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  boundaries. That's incredibly important as
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  ACEO. If you wanted to grow to a
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  company with 100 employees, do you really want an open door
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  policy that everyone's coming in and out of 24/7?
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  No. You'd never get any work done.
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  So saying yes to the things that really matter and being able to
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  say no to the things that don't matter is an incredibly
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  important mindset shift that you need to go through.
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  You need to treat your salary like a non negotiable.
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  So many business owners don't pay themselves and I've been
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  there and I've done it myself. Oh, I'll just take it next
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  month. It's fine.
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  No, you need to treat your salary like a non negotiable.
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  Do you think the CEO of Tesco doesn't pay himself?
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  Do you think the CEO of 28 clothing doesn't pay himself?
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  No, you have to pay yourself first.
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  Your salary is a non negotiable and your pricing and your
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  business has to reflect that. You plan ahead and not just
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  react. Being proactive is #1 secret
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  sauce to succeeding in business. For your business's success.
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  You have to plan ahead and not just react.
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  If you wait to see what's going to happen in the budget and then
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  make a plan, even that's not enough.
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  As ACEO, you should plan ahead and have a Plan B.
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  I'm not saying we need 27,000 plans, but if the worst happens,
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  where do we go from here? If the best happens, where do we
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  go from here? Should be your absolute base
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  point. As ACEO, you ask for help and
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  pay for support. This one is key because even I
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  was for the first couple of years in my business trying all
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  the free solutions. Now yes, sometimes they helped.
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  Yes there is lots of free solutions out there.
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  But actually when you pay for support, there's a mindset shift
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  in that of you're paying for a service, you expect a better
• 8:05
  result and you hold yourself accountable because you're
• 8:08
  paying for that support. You value your time as much as
• 8:13
  your service. Service based business owners do
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  not put a value on their time. I remember so vividly, and I
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  don't know if I spoke about this on the podcast before when I
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  was, I must have been like 1516 years of age.
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  I had a market store with a few of my friends in Scunthorpe
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  Market and we personalized printed T-shirts and engraved
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  glasses and did all the personalized gifts that you
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  could make. And I am a huge petrol head and
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  I used to go to the grass track regularly to the bike track,
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  grass track with all my friends. And there was a, a man called
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  Bill and he used to give me a lift to and from wherever it
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  was. I think it was Pickering this
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  time up in North Yorkshire. Wonderful place.
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  If you've not been, please do go.
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  But we were in the car and I was explaining what I did.
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  I was like, I could do you some team kit.
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  Like I could like, do you some branded things for your bikes.
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  I could do T-shirts for your, for your pit crew, for your
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  team. Like we could really enhance the
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  brand in here and give you a real cohesive team feel like the
• 9:16
  professionals do, but for a fraction of the price because
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  you know what? I'm just starting out.
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  And he said, OK, so how much do you charge?
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  I was like, I charged, I think it was like 10 LB AT shirt.
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  So how long does it take you to make that T-shirt?
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  And I was like 434 hours maybe. And he was like, OK, so where is
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  what are you paying yourself? Like what is your hourly rate?
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  And it was my first kind of insight into wow, my time has an
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  hourly rate too and I need to make sure that I am factoring
• 9:44
  that into my pricing. And guess what?
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  I hit money 829, started a business and did not factor in
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  my pricing. Should have paid more attention.
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  But Bill, you were correct. And you should absolutely value
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  your time as much as your service.
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  And that should factor into your pricing too.
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  You're not here to build yourself another job.
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  You're here to build something that works even when you're not
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  online, even when you're not in the office.
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  A sustainable business that keeps building even when you're
• 10:12
  not working on it. So if you're listening to this
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  podcast and thinking yes, OK, I'm ready, it's time for me to
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  step up, Here is where to start this week.
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  Number one, run a profit check right now.
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  What is your real take home after everything each month for
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  the last year #2 map your financial priorities.
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  Are you saving for tax? Are you investing in support?
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  Have you got pots put aside to keep your different taxes
• 10:37
  separate? If not, we need to start doing
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  that. Three, review your pricing.
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  I keep going on about this because it's the thing that I
• 10:44
  think most business owners need to change and you need to ask
• 10:47
  yourself, is it future proof or fee based?
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  Are you charging £10 an hour because you feel like that's
• 10:53
  what you can get because you're new and nobody will ever pay
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  more than that? Or are you factoring in the time
• 10:57
  it takes paying yourself proper wage and your overheads?
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  If your software increases were 20% tomorrow, could your
• 11:06
  business still hold that? Is it still future proof #4
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  identify 1 task right now. You could delegate or automate
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  and it doesn't have to be big. It can be something as simple as
• 11:16
  an e-mail triage service tool. So a tool that goes through
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  emails and flags the most important and puts the junk into
• 11:25
  a separate folder that you can look at when you've got spare
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  time. If you're a solopreneur, you
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  don't have anyone to delegate to.
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  You can automate to and five, book a financial review, whether
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  that's with me or with someone else.
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  See where you are, see where you want to get to and put a plan in
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  place because CEOs do not just wait and see.
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  They make informed strategic choices and implement the things
• 11:50
  that they've learned. So you don't have to build an
• 11:52
  empire if you don't want to. But if you want a business, it
• 11:55
  gives you freedom, not just invoices and stress.
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  That shift from solopreneur to CEO starts with the foundation
• 12:01
  of your business. And if you want help making that
• 12:04
  shift from a financial perspective, that's exactly what
• 12:07
  we do at ABCSUK. If you go to ABCSUK, you can
• 12:11
  book a Power of Us, book a free Discovery call.
• 12:14
  We can show you what support we can give you and see if a
• 12:17
  strategy session, a power hour, or a monthly support package is
• 12:21
  right for you and your business. That's it for today, Another
• 12:24
  episode of the Three Beasts podcast.
• 12:27
  If you've missed any of the last few episodes, now's a great time
• 12:29
  to go back and binge them. We did a short little series
• 12:32
  over the summer where we went through all sort of the basics
• 12:34
  of business that I'm hoping will be useful for you.
• 12:37
  Next up, we've got something exciting, so stay tuned, Hit
• 12:40
  follow so you don't miss it. Subscribe, rate and review, and
• 12:43
  I'll see you next week for the next episode.
• 12:45
  Bye. And that brings us to the end of
• 12:48
  another episode of The Three Bees podcast.
• 12:50
  I hope you found it useful and that you're walking away with
• 12:53
  some motivation, inspiration or education to help you build a
• 12:57
  Better Business. Don't forget to subscribe, leave
• 12:59
  a review and of course, connect with us on social media for more
• 13:02
  insights, tips and behind the scenes content.
• 13:04
  Your next step in building a Better Business is just a click
• 13:07
  away. I can't wait to connect with you
• 13:09
  and I'll see you on the next episode.
• 13:10
  Bye.